


of desert islands

by DeviantDynamics



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Darcy has a potty mouth, Darcy-centric, Everyone loves Darcy, F/M, Fangirl Darcy Lewis, I didn't mean to i am sorry, Implied Slash, Lots of drinking, Not Civil War-compliant, Slow Burn, So much angst, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Steve & Darcy are besties, Steve Rogers is Perceptive, Tony Stark & Darcy Lewis drinking buddies, WinterShock - Freeform, a lot of talk about dying, but there will be smut, canon-divergence, everyone is confused, everyone keeps throwing things, my characters do what they want, not really AOU-compliant, ridiculous storylines taking themselves way too seriously, still spoils plot details from everything, this was meant to be cute and funny dammit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 50,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8598808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeviantDynamics/pseuds/DeviantDynamics
Summary: Darcy wasn't enough to actually save the world. Or anyone for that matter.But she made Tony laugh when he was getting wasted at 10 o'clock in the morning and kept an eye on Jane's sleeping habits and explained human customs to Thor and expanded Steve's knowledge of modern pop-culture and kicked Clint's ass in Call of Duty. Made a fool of herself when Bruce was busy taking himself too seriously just to make him smile and talked Natasha into braiding her hair whenever it looked like she was shutting herself off.And if that meant she never had a place in the spotlight herself she was fine with it. If it meant she would be there to offer support while they all were out there, saving the world, instead of getting her own chance to be the hero it was a deal she was willing to take.They were meant for greatness. Jane's fate had been written in the stars and hers on a gravestone but that didn't mean she would simply sit and wait for the day that had filled her childhood nights with horror. She would be the best fucking side-kick the world would never hear about.Most days she could pretend that was enough.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story started out as a ridiculous crackfic-scene and then devoured my life. It was meant to be funny and fluffy and short.  
> Apparently that didn't work out quite as I imagined. I don't even know what this is, but i got hit by inspiration and this demands to be finished. I don't even know if anyone's even gonna read this.  
> I hope someone is.  
> This story is so important to me and i really really hope at least one person finds some kind of entertainment in it. I'm really bad at expressing myself.  
> Feedback would mean the world to me. Whoever reads this right now - I hope you'll enjoy this.

“ _And to 'scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night.”_

― _John Donne_

 

 

Jane once told her a soulmate was more than just the person that said your words.

 

They were both moving past tipsy on red wine and tequila and she would regret it in the morning but for the moment it didn't matter. It didn't matter because Jane was sad and tired and longing for something that was quite literally not from this earth. Jane, who was her friend and probably the only person she had ever truly trusted. Darcy watched her expression in the flickering light of the bonfire and decided to ignore her principles for one fateful night. Dared to graze the topic she had been dead-set on avoiding long before aliens and asgardian gods had become more than mere conspiracy theories.

 

“All my life I felt like part of me was missing.. all my life I _knew_ there was something out there I couldn't quite understand yet.” She was holding her hand and staring off into the night sky and it had been like that for more than 10 minutes now but it was okay. Darcy never truly grasped the concept of personal space and she was too drunk to hide everything she didn't want Jane to wonder about. She was too drunk not to answer if Jane just dared to ask.

 

“I never believed in any mythologies but there was something about the universe that always fascinated me and now.. now it all makes sense, Darcy.” She continued, her eyes still glued to the stars as if she could make out his face if she just squinted hard enough.

 

“I think.. I think this missing part of me, this almost physical _need_ to understand was the reason I became an astrophysicist in the first place.”

 

The hand that wasn't holding on to Darcy's for dear life kept moving across her collarbone. Right over the spot where Darcy knew her words were. For a second she glanced at her own thigh. Hidden behind thick wool tights rested the reason she wore knee-length trunks to the swimming pool since age thirteen. Hidden behind thick wool tights lay everything that made her reach for the tequila bottle once again.

 

“I understand.” She said. She didn't add how all her life she had felt like part of her was dead.

 

 

*

 

For the first few years of Darcy's life her words had been a light grey and slightly blurry.

 

She remembered staring at the dark lines of her mother's words when she was three and wondering why hers were different. She remembered rushed excuses and avoidance in her father's eyes when she finally dared to ask. She remembered “ _It just means your soulmate hasn't been born yet._ ” and feeling like there was something he left out.

 

She remembered being four and asking her kindergarten teacher about it.

 

“A grey soulmark means one of two things,” Miss Bennett had said “Either a soulmate hasn't been born yet or they have died.”

 

She could deal with that. She was so young that death was a ridiculous notion. Age was just a number and with the few years she had, she was sure it wouldn't to be one of those “whole different generations” kind of soulmates. And even if it was, every possible awkwardness paled compared to the wonder and excitement she had imagined. From the day she understood what a soulmate was, she was ecstatic about the idea of meeting someone that was made just for her. She was so certain her words would darken any day now and she didn't understand the sad expression in her mother's face whenever she started to talk about it or the way her father would leave the room whenever she asked him to read her words to her.

 

“You should be the one to read your words yourself, love.” He always said and she had whined and nagged and he had turned away and she didn't understand because her friend Clara had known her _“excuse me, you've lost this.”_ from the first day of kindergarten and she wasn't young enough not to notice how the kids looked at her when she told them she didn't know.

 

Shortly before Darcy turned five two things happened. The first thing, the remarkable one, that made her beam and dance and laugh was the slight burn on her thigh on a Wednesday.

She had been waiting for her Mommy to pick her up when she noticed the itching rise in temperature underneath her jeans and just like that _she knew_.

She had run to her teacher, who had been tidying up the drawing tables and pushed her jeans down with a brazenness only a child possessed.

 

“Look at this Miss Bennett.” She had screeched after she had made sure her assumption was right, “My soulmate has finally been born!”

 

She remembered the silence that followed. Miss Bennett's eyes had fixated on her skin in a way that almost dampened the excitement she felt. In a way that reminded her of the day Mommy had told her granny had went to a better place.

 

“That's nice, Darcy.” Miss Bennett had said in the same voice Daddy used when he didn't want to talk about something. Like Darcy's excitement wasn't nice at all. Like something was different in a way that didn't make people roll their eyes at her but gape with open mouths.

“ _too perceptive for her own good”_ Her mother would say years later, when she allowed her the first unofficial official beer and they would talk about this for the last time. But Darcy was four, almost five and she didn't even know what “perceptive” even meant but Miss Bennett frowned and Mommy bought her a whole pint of ice-cream with glassy eyes that didn't look happy _at all_ and Darcy understood something was wrong. She didn't know yet that although none of them explained a thing to her – it wouldn't make sense, even if they did.

 

The second thing that happened, the thing that would grant her praise from teachers and family alike, the thing that would so easily, so indefinitely crush her fairy-tale dream of hearing her words for the first time was that Darcy taught herself how to read.

 

Two days she had spent hidden in her room. Two days of revising and repeating all the characters of the alphabet until she could squiggly draw the letters of her name by heart. Until she could impress her mother in the morning by reading her the ingredients of her box of cereal.

Until she could run off to the bathroom to lift up her skirt.

 

And Darcy finally understood. Painfully, with tears running down her face she had stood in front of the shower, the dark letters on her naked skin finally bringing sense to her father's reluctance and her mother's sadness and the pity in Miss Bennett's eyes.

 

Her soulmate had just been born, she realized, all her excitement crumbling down to make room for the terror that started to fill up her chest.

 

They had just been born and they were going to kill her.

 

Then the nightmares begun.

 

 

*

 

Her mother cried when her mark faded for the first time.

 

A chill had went through her leg, she had lifted her shorts and there it was. Pale, grey and just blurry enough to still be legible. Then there were tears and hugs and her mother smiled and whispered words like “thank god..” and “I was hoping for this..” and Darcy didn't quite understand what she was supposed to feel.

 

Her mother's relieve tasted wrong and bitter and the light colour of her words didn't help to ease the horror that had settled into her ribcage all these months ago and just wouldn't stop itching.

 

In her chest was nothing but fear.

 

Her soulmate, who was supposed to one day end her life was dead and gone and the sour taste in her mouth made her want to bite her tongue off.

 

“So this is it?” She asked and her mother had laughed and nodded and hugged her tighter and she felt like crying too. There had been anger and frustration and anguish inside her little heart. There had been disappointment and tears in the middle of the night. Nights filled with pain and blood and all the things a girl her age should never dream about.

This had never been how she had imagined. And now they were gone.

 

And now felt worse.

 

 

*

 

No doctor actually knew what was happening when her mark darkened again but they had all plenty to say.

 

There were words like “resuscitation” and “illness” and a lot of pseudo-scientific bullshit from a lot of different people wearing the same coats and Darcy was only eight and understood just barely what exactly it meant but even she knew that you couldn't bring someone back from the dead after three years and her mother frowned and argued as if it changed a thing and Darcy didn't tell her how the tears on her face didn't stem from fear.

 

How there had been a warmth inside her chest when it started to creep up her leg the night before.

How she had caressed her skin with quivering hands as if they were able to feel it.

 

Her mother had been shaking her head just again and again. Babbling about impossibility and throwing question around no one knew how to answer and Darcy sat quietly in the doctor's office, her little hands rubbing across her mark and didn't dare to think about how all her life they had just told her that soulmates were supposed to love each other.

 

 _Maybe you're gonna kill me_ , she thought, promising herself to never speak of the images inside her mind, _maybe that's just the way it is supposed to be._

 

 

*

 

She was 18 when she tried to get it covered. When she decided it was finally time to stop the aching in her chest every time she took a shower, the worried questions, the pity in someone else's eyes when she hadn't been careful enough once again.. the flicker of hope every time it started to darken.

 

She was sick and tired of thinking about it and her words had been grey for 8 months now. But that didn't mean a thing. It had happened so often she pretended to have lost count and she had stopped googling certain birth dates and coma patients or accidents years ago.

Her chest felt just as faded and lifeless as the mark across her skin.

 

So she decided to get rid of it once and for all. With a delicate, beautiful snowflake plastered over the terrifying promise she still wasn't certain to ever outrun and the tattoo-artist smirked at her pale flesh and threw her a wink she wasn't entirely comfortable with.

 

“So you got him first, huh?” He chuckled, drawing the outlines across her skin and she glanced down for a second to see her mark just as washed out as it had been for most of her life.

 

“For now.” She said and the smirk left his face and confusion settled and she didn't say another word until he started inking her skin.

 

He stopped after half an hour, looking up to her with raised brows and she returned the expression, ignoring the fluttering warmth inside her chest.

 

“This is some twisted shit, man.” He said and she followed his eyes to the freshly inked skin of her thigh. The beautiful lines ornamenting the tragedy fate had picked out for her, instead of covering it.

 

She suppressed the shiver that started running down her spine and cleared her face of any reaction that would be expected. Just stared at the darkened mark. Hadn't even noticed the burn of its return, uncertain if she was simply too used to the sensation or too occupied by the sting of the tattoo-gun to properly notice.

 

“It always comes back to me.” She said and it was the first time in forever she had spoken out loud about it and it would be the last for many years to come. His frown deepened as he smeared another splotch of vaseline across her skin and positioned his gun to the line he'd been working on.

 

“This is the first time i've seen something like this..” He begun as the now familiar buzz of the gadget started again and she swallowed the 'duh' burning at the tip of her tongue.

 

“Not just the.. blacking out thing.. and I mean, that shit's creepy,” he threw her a sympathetic look she almost rolled her eyes at “It's more the fact that it doesn't take..”

 

As if to proof his point he drew a horizontal line across her words and she almost started complaining when she noticed it didn't leave a mark.

 

“What the fuck?” She whispered and he just shook his head, pity in his features and she felt nauseous in ways she couldn't explain.

 

“Your mark's strong, babe,” He mumbled, slowly finishing the last lines of her snowflake. “it doesn't want to be covered.”

 

 

*

 

That night she spent googling soulmark cover-ups.

Her beautiful snowflake accentuating what she never wanted to look at ever again and her heart beating heavily against her ribcage.

 

Most soulmarks were like tattoos, she knew, always there, always reminding you of the most compatible love you could ever experience, but like a tattoo nevertheless.

Some were different, she read, there had been cases where a soulmark reappeared elsewhere after the body part it had originally covered needed to be amputated or re-emerged over scar tissue. A one in a million soulmark, she read, mostly tragic, mostly life-changing.

 

She read of war heroes and firemen and dramatic accidents and epic adventures that were probably made up half of the time and there was a sentence that made her stop in her tracks.

 

“ _A soulmark will be bulletproof if it's meant to save a life.”_

 

She took a huge swig of her second bottle of wine and didn't laugh at the irony.

 

When it faded again 4 months later she didn't know it would be for the last time.

 

 

*

 

She had always been kind of in love with the idea of loving someone.

Her parents story had been almost like a fairy-tale and for the first few years they represented everything she could ever wish for for herself. All the movies she would never admit to have watched. All the love-songs she had hidden in her non-descriptive _playlist 43_ on her Ipod that she didn't even dare to sing out loud under the shower. All the novels, she had went through at her high school library, never bought and new by heart all the same.

Growing up like she did, it had been hard not to fall for the ideal she had been presented with at every corner as if it was going to happen to her one day too.

Feeling complete holding someone's hand. Waking up in the morning unable to believe how lucky she'd gotten. Touching someone's skin and feeling right about it.

The reality? Not so much.

 

So she had gathered her soulmate was very likely a chronically ill psychopath who slipped in and out of some kind of comas and was one day going to end her life. There was nothing she could do about it. If she ever wanted love for herself it was pretty apparent she had to look elsewhere.. until they snapped out of their never-ending state of almost-dying and finally snuffed her, that is.

But she figured she presumably had a few more years left, since she was still young and they even younger, mostly unconscious anyway and.. it was probably mostly wishful thinking.

 

So she had been on her perpetual journey to find someone to care for but most people were stupid and boring or just too busy staring at their own marks to try for anything else and the only people she met whose words looked pale and blurry, much like her own most of the time, were old and senile or in the odd case they weren't always a lot stranger than even she was willing to deal with. Or maybe it simply never felt right. Maybe she was more preoccupied with the hot tingle against her flesh every few years than she was willing to admit and maybe.. _maybe_ trying anything wouldn't be truly fair to anyone to begin with. So she kissed a few boys and a couple of girls, shared her bed or couch or sometimes the back of a car for a few fleeting moments and it never meant a thing.

And the pressure was building.

With every moment she spent throwing herself into work (which mostly consisted of force-feeding Jane some kind of nutrition) or wasting away on video games and movies or even her studies _day X_ drew closer. With every new morning, with every glance at her always covered thigh, with every look at all those people around her being so disgustingly, happily in love she knew without a doubt that she was running out of time. Felt it seeping through her bones every time she closed her eyes.

 

Her mark had darkened again on the night of her 19th birthday and it hadn't faded since. The black lines glinted against her skin as if they had never been gone and with it returned everything her therapist had blamed on her 'vivid imagination'. The biting cold and torrid pain, that had woken her up with damp cheeks. The jerky images of a car going over a cliff and the sound of gun shots. Drenched in sweat she had emptied her stomach next to her bedside cabinet.

 

The next day she had applied for the weird, unspecific and very clearly unpaid internship of one Doctor Jane Foster.

 

 _'Take chances if you're just supposed to die anyway'_ she never told when asked what it was that made her apply in the first place.

“You know.. college credits.” She said instead, stuffed her mouth with french fries and looked as uninterested as she possibly could.

 

For awhile it felt like anything was better than the truth.

 

She should have known it couldn't last forever.

 

 

*

 

For most of her life Darcy Lewis had felt like the supporting character in her own story.

 

It made sense to an extent.

Looking back at the beautiful fairy-tale of her parents, the incredible bravery of her soldier brother, the hallmark movie moments of her school friends' lives or the unbelievable wonder that was Jane Foster's brain she felt insignificant. Like the not-so-silent observer of every magnificent story one could imagine. The eternal bystander of adventure and romance she had thought reachable before she was able to read and didn't quite understand yet what wasn't in the cards for her by default.

 

For a while she wanted to be the hero. Wanted to be special, too.

 

But there was the constant heaviness inside her chest and the blood filled dreams of death and torture that returned to her every time her mark had darkened and the continuous ticking in the back of her head, like a timer counting down to something she liked to make her mother believe she had stopped worrying about years ago.

The only things actually special about her were her complete lack of self-preservation, the mystery around the cosmic joke that was going to end her life and her almost perverse obsession with her own misery. And maybe her bra size.

 

One day she would end up to be the sad side story somebody would tell their friends. A reason to toast to all the things they were thankful for. An example of how it could have been worse.

 

Then life changed and it made really sense.

 

She had spent more than four years getting involved with the impossible and she didn't really understand how exactly it happened but suddenly she had stopped getting wasted at college parties and instead spent her Friday nights with asgardian gods, one of the most powerful men in all of America and the same face that covered countless pages of her high school history books. She was surrounded by people who saved the world on a semi-regular basis and Jane was almost a superhero in her own right.

She was the side-kick. The comic-relief with just a hint of tragedy (or quite a lot of tragedy, but she was just a annotation to the story so it wouldn't matter in the long run) and she was good at it.

Darcy was a smart girl with a smart mouth but she wasn't a genius that could literally disrupt space and time or a technical prodigy that created AI's with more personality than most people she had met. She could take care of herself well enough but she couldn't meet a target blindfolded from 2 miles away or crush a grown man between her thighs.

 

Darcy wasn't enough to actually save the world. Or anyone for that matter.

 

But she made Tony laugh when he was getting wasted at 10 o'clock in the morning and kept an eye on Jane's sleeping habits and explained human customs to Thor and expanded Steve's knowledge of modern pop-culture and kicked Clint's ass in Call of Duty. She made a fool of herself when Bruce was busy taking himself too seriously just to make him smile and talked Natasha into braiding her hair whenever it looked like she was shutting herself off.

Maybe she was simply killing time.

Maybe she just liked to think she was their link to normality.

 

And if that meant she never had a place in the spotlight herself she was _fine_ with that. If it meant she would be there to offer support while they all were out there, saving the world, instead of getting her own chance to be the hero it was a deal she was willing to take.

They were meant for greatness. Jane's fate had been written in the stars and hers on a gravestone but that didn't mean she would simply sit and wait for the day that had filled her childhood nights with horror.

 

She would be the best fucking side-kick the world would never hear about.

 

Most days she could pretend that was enough.

 

 

*

 

“My death is certain.” She told Jane one day in the middle of work because she felt particularly dramatic and slightly disgusted by the “ _let's meet up when I'm in NY_ ”-text Ian had sent her five minutes ago. Ian who.. yeah.. had been there when she was terrified and it'd been London, he had just saved her life and she almost half expected one of the dark elfs to pull the trigger at her, muttering her words and his mouth had been warm and secure and _present_ and now she didn't really feel like thinking about it any further.

 

Because it had been 5 years since she spotted faded grey lines between the ink on her leg instead of the promise that greeted her every day in all its sardonic vibrancy or since Jane Foster had changed her life with that goddamn intern enquiry that had taken up so much more than just her summer.

That goddamn internship that destroyed almost everything she had believed to be true.

 

And in so many ways she could probably never put into words she loved her for it. In quite a few others she was just tired.

 

Jane looked up from the gadget she was probably ten seconds away from electrocuting herself with and threw her a half-interested glance before she went back to her project.

 

“Everyone's death is certain.” She answered, her concentration already refocused on whatever exactly it was she was doing and just completely unaware of the huge leaps Darcy was taking just by opening her mouth about it.

 

“No like.. truly certain. I have the threat and all to prove it.”

 

She pulled her jeans down to her knees, gesturing to her mark like the mad woman she clearly had become and waited for the reaction she had seen a hundred times too many.

 

“Oh aren't you a special snowflake!” Jane chuckled, obviously not even paying half the attention the situation deserved.

 

“That was actually my exact sentiment behind it _but that is not the point,_ boss lady so if you'd just look a little closer!”

She felt half a minute away from throwing something at her friend's head.

 

Jane sighed and put her very complicated looking gadget slowly on the table before she took a step closer and examined the ink on her skin. With a probing look on her face and her fingertips tracing its lines like a three year old would.

 

“It's a nice artwork but I really don't understand what you...” Her eyes widened and she pulled her hands from her leg as if it had burned her. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

 

There was confusion and worry in her expression but her face lacked the usual pity Darcy was used to. Once again she thanked whatever for putting Jane into her life.

 

“Yes and No.” She answered, almost finding a twisted sense of pride in the shock-value of her death sentence “This is my soulmark.”

 

And as she explained it wasn't as hard as she had imagined. She felt a little lighter even.

This was Jane and everything connected to her was sort of complicated but never in the way she made her feel. This time she simply listened. A determined look on her face as if she could make sense of it all if Darcy just kept talking.

 

“This is a lot to think about.” She finally said and didn't meet her eyes for a couple of seconds.

 

“That's not why I showed you.” Darcy added. The last vital piece of information still stuck at the tip of her tongue and part of her thought this was the moment she should start getting nervous.

 

Jane rose her brow in question and somehow Darcy didn't.

 

“I kinda feel like it won't be long now.” she admitted and it was strange how speaking it out loud didn't send shivers down her back. For once she felt calm and collected. For once she didn't feel like she was lying to herself.

 

That night, when she closed her eyes she didn't dream of death and destruction for the first time in years.

 

This time she was simply falling.

 

 

*

 

She was 14 when she read about Bucky Barnes for the first time.

 

There was a small picture of him in the corner of her history book, next to countless collages of the overwhelming legend that was Captain America and she remembered staring at his face for half of her lesson thinking how horrible life had always been.

 

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th infantry, the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.

 

She remembered not getting rid of the sour taste in her mouth for days to come.

 

Lots of soldiers had lost their lives in service, rationally she knew this. Rationally, she was well aware that there was enough loss and destruction caused by war to cry for a lifetime and this stranger, who had been dead for 60 years, wasn't all that special.

 

Or maybe that was the reason she couldn't stop flipping the pages back to his picture. Maybe that was why she spent the following nights researching everything she could find on the fallen soldier with the boyish grin who was just _one of many_ and whose name probably only appeared in the books because of the national icon he had called his best friend.

 

James Buchanan Barnes would have been forgotten if it wasn't for the association. A man who had been reaching for greatness just to become a footnote in history. A man known for his drive and his charm and his kindness and loyalty. With a smile that made something in her chest flutter even though he had been long dead before even her parents were born.

 

She remembered looking at all the old grainy recordings she could find on the internet and drinking in the sound of his laughter until she could replay it in the back of her head. She remembered staring at his sad, exhausted eyes after Captain America had rescued him from the Nazis and thinking how _alive_ they were even after all he must have had endured.

 

She remembered her brother catching her in the act and calling her a weirdo.

 

She kept looking at his smiling face from time to time. Swallowing the literally _impossible_ urge to reach out and touch his cheek. Wallowing in a sadness that was too irrational to even try to put it into words.

 

 _'It is ironic_ , _'_ she thought, years later when she had finally given up on trying to force herself to care for someone in _that_ certain way that never seemed to have a place in her life to begin with.

 

The only thing that ever made her feel like that was the smile of a dead man.

 

 

_*_

 

She had been kind of star-struck when she met Steve Rogers for the first time.

 

They had just returned from London four months ago and finally settled into their new lives at 'Stark Industries' and it was the last thing she expected. It really shouldn't be. After everything, she was still doubtful they had truly survived, the calm took root. Now they had found a place to call 'home' - even if it was inside the goddamn 'Avengers Tower'. Now, that the undeniable entanglement with the world of superheroes and 'classified information' had been once and for all branded 'reality' and she thought there was nothing left that could surprise her. The decision to extend her high school history knowledge to the next level was rudely taken out of her hands by the gods themselves.

 

Or.. one god in particular.

 

So she stood next to the chiselled hunk of man-meat, some people used to worship and her best friend called her 'boyfriend' and felt ridiculous from head to toe. Thor's introduction was enthusiastic and exorbitant and if she hadn't been faced with _Captain fucking America himself_ this very moment she'd be gloating by now.

 

 _The Lady Darcy, Lightening-Sister to Thor, son of Odin and future king of Asgard_ should be written on her card from this day forward if she should ever actually get around to print any.

 

“Also known as Foster's personal babysitter.” Tony quipped from somewhere behind the couch and she flipped him the finger just so she could pretend she was completely comfortable for a little longer.

 

“Don't shit on my thunder, drunkface.” She spat, pointedly ignoring how her history A- watched her in a way that made her skin crawl. _Would_ , that is.. if she was paying attention or anything.

 

“Oh you didn't sound like that last night, if I recall correctly.” Came the immediate reply and she didn't even spare him a glance out of the sheer concentration she needed to hold up her composure.

 

He still hadn't said a word but took a step closer and Darcy was trying really hard not to look as intimidated as she felt.

 

“I think my exact words were 'Shut up and pass me the booze'.. no part there denying your alcoholic tendencies.” She rolled her eyes and suppressed the amusement that was fighting to force a smile on her lips.

 

The reason she had a roof over her head for the last couple of months abandoned his position behind the couch, where he had been doing _god knows what_ with a science-fiction-y looking StarkPad and slung an arm across her shoulder. “Ahh, so harsh! And that's why we get along, right Shawty? Judge me back into reality.” the smell of whiskey was strong on his breath and he poked her cheek in what was probably meant to be affectionate. She held herself back from grimacing and looked straight ahead.

 

 _Captain America_ was still staring at her face but he didn't look as confused anymore and she had to swallow twice before she finally found the guts to hold out her hand.

 

“Hi, I'm Darcy, you saved my GPA in freshman year.” She threw him her best 'please like me I'm a pleasure to be around'-smile and waited for six agonizing seconds until he finally shook her hand.

 

“Call me Steve,” He said in a voice she had heard a thousand times already and the unnatural heat of his skin only startled her a little. The bright grin that spread across his face reminded her of a puppy dog and she felt microscopically more at ease. “And I don't exactly know what you're talking about.”

 

She let go of his hand, her brain preparing everything she wanted to say in overtime and only stopped herself last second to pull him away so she could bombard him with questions for the next few hours. _Super Soldier Serum,_ she reminded herself, _you couldn't move him anyway_.

 

“Dude, your 1940's ass-kicking saved me from falling asleep in class for two months straight,” _Great Darcy, wonderful first impression you're making there.._ “The whole Valkyrie thing.. man I had goosebumps the whole time we read about it in class.. like I expected it to end differently until the very last page even though I knew how it was going to be and I..”

 

Tony's hand halted her rambling a lot more gracefully than her mouth would have ever been able to.

 

“See, Cap. You've not only saved countless lives but also brightened dear Shawty's teenage-years with your heroism.”

 

Thor just quietly put a hand on top of her shoulder and beamed happily at her Tony-induced lack of response.

 

“My Lady Darcy is a fierce warrior herself,” He commented, pride in his tone and the story of their first meeting already resounded inside her head before he even started to raise his voice again.

 

“I like tasing people.” She said, after her friend finished his entirely embellished tale of her admittedly slight overreaction and looked up to the now smirking national icon in front of her. Tony let out a low chuckle to her left and the tautness inside her chest finally settled.

 

It was almost too easy from there on.

 

There was a bit of awkward silence at first. Because she was still just Darcy and he the man she had spent her whole life reading stories about. But it was expected and exciting. Just a little stop on the road. Just a little struggle filled with the literal god on her side who wouldn't stop with his exaggerated tales and an always smirking Tony Stark who kept himself very busy trying to rile her up until she didn't break into cold sweat whenever he held her sight for too long and she finally stopped calling him _Captain America_ inside her head whenever her started to talk.

 

Steve Rogers looked much more like a model than a soldier from up close and strangely enough that put her more at ease. She could deal with beautiful. Thor was basically family and she had lived with Jane for almost three years now. The reality of death and war on the other hand was something she just wasn't drunk enough to confront even though she had passed the point of tipsy like an hour ago.

So this was _Steve,_ not a national icon, and she would laugh at his stupid face just like she did with everyone else. No matter how pretty it looked after four beers.

 

She didn't know how long exactly they spent on Tony's godforsaken couch, not even her whole university tuition could ever pay for, until they had finished sharing ludicrous battle stories and really anything her fuzzy brain could think of and she wasn't tired of telling jokes at everyone's expense and going through their fourth six-pack of the evening felt like exactly what she needed.

 

So she waved in passing as Tony excused himself for something ' _inspiration related_ ' and fleetingly smiled at the peck Thor left on her forehead when he went to ' _look for his Lady Jane_ '. She pulled Steve's attention back into the intricate details of the beauty that was _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ until he agreed to a tv-show marathon that would be the first of many. And for a moment she just marvelled at the fact how truly comfortable it was to actually talk to him.

 

Like he really listened. Like he really cared about whatever she had to say.

 

He was also a huge dork.

 

“You, my dear hope of America, are a fucking loser!” She screeched, her index finger pointedly wiggling way too close to his face after he finished a rather ridiculous alcohol-related slice of history she hadn't found anything about in any kind of school book.

 

He chuckled at her accusing expression and took a small sip of his beer before he finally pushed her hand away from his face.

 

“It's tragic, really.” He admitted, an amused glint in his eyes. “And now I can't get drunk anymore.”

 

“You.. you can't.. you _**what**_??”

 

That was _it._

 

Utter indignation took control over her body as she threw herself at him and tried to pry the bottle of beer out of his unyielding fingers.

 

He didn't move an inch.

 

“Then why? Why by everything that is holy on this godforsaken planet are you drinking my booze?” She whined, grabbing her chest in what was supposed to look like complete desperation while her other arm was still set on operation 'ridding Steve of alcohol'.

He started laughing when she finally realized there was just damage in trying. Damage in the form of bruises on her palms from where she had tried to hit his shoulders.

 

“It's the super soldier serum,” He explained as if she hadn't read about it a hundred times already. “Filters the alcohol right out of my system.”

 

She pulled a mock-offended face and took a swig of her own bottle.

 

“Also the reason why I can't push you off the couch, I gather.”

 

He nodded and the amusement in his eyes slowly morphed into something that just didn't belong in the face of a man that had saved the world again and again.

 

“You got moxie,” He said after a couple of seconds and it somehow didn't sound like the compliment it clearly was intended to be. There was a regret in his voice she just couldn't place.

 

And she stopped pulling faces and just looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The whole atmosphere suddenly a lot heavier than just moments ago and _she didn't understand_ but wanted to shake it out of him all the same.

There was a melancholic shadow stuck around the corners of his smile and the way he didn't meet her sight as if he was too scared to speak whatever he was holding back out loud.

She knew they didn't know each other well enough yet but part of her wanted to pull him close and just not let go until it vanished.

 

He took a huge swig from his beer before he continued and she needed a couple of seconds until she realised she had actually taken his hand.

 

“I had this friend once who would have absolutely adored you.”

 

His voice was barely a whisper. As if he needed to shelter his words from the world and for a moment he looked at her as if she reminded him of everything he didn't want to think about.

 

He didn't cry, she was fairly certain he wouldn't start crying, but his fingers gripped into the cushions of the couch as if he needed to crush something between them and she just held on to him, not really allowing herself to think of the implication that had left his lips and felt a strange irrational sadness settle into her own chest.

 

This was not the kind of thing she had been nervous about. This was so much worse,

 

 

“We don't have to talk about it.” She said under her breath, maybe for his sake as much as her own. He glanced at her face as she reached to caress the back of his head. Just the same way her mother had when she had been little and just woken up from the blood filled dreams and the terror that kept on following her. “You don't have to say anything you're not willing to.”

 

He nodded so slowly she would have missed it if her look wasn't dead set on his face. Following every minuscule twitch as if it would give her more information she was in no way ready for.

 

She knew what he was trying to say and it terrified her more than she was able to comprehend.

 

“One day we will.” He said, a fondness in his eyes she never expected from a guy she met only 5 hours ago but that felt natural nevertheless and she just held on tight for a little longer.

 

 _Life is unfair,_ she thought once again and patted his head like the mother hen she was born to be.

 

“One day.”

 

And if she spent that night watching old recordings she hadn't dared to look at for years... no one had to know.

 

 

*

 

She wasn't entirely sure if it was part of the reason or just a strange sort of coincidence but the week before she told Jane everything she got a phone call in the middle of the night.

 

It wasn't late enough to worry someone had died but she had been almost _pleasantly_ asleep, dreaming of exploding cars and gleaming knifes, just getting to the good stuff and the nagging screech of her phone would have been a not completely unwelcome distraction if it wasn't for her very real nightmare of a schedule the next morning.

 

“Who's calling me at arse-o'clock?” She snarled into the speaker, the caller-ID set to private just as it was the case with almost everyone she held dear.

 

“ _Darcy!_ ” Steve's voice sounded rushed and agitated and just like that she was wide awake. Morning schedule be damned.

 

“What's going on? Why do you sound like someone died or something?”

 

Suddenly there was panic. Suddenly her heart was hammering against her ribcage as if it tried to break out of it. Frantically she made a list inside her head of everyone she had ever talked to and the violent ways they could have been snapped out of existence and she forgot how to breathe and it would be too late for her if he didn't continue talking this very second..

 

“Are you okay? Did something happen? Is Natasha with you?”

 

“ _Darcy.._ ” He sounded apologetic but still talked so slow that she would have risked breaking her hand on his face if he would be standing in front of her. “ _We're okay.. it's.. I can't talk about it on the phone but we're alive. Listen..”_

 

Again he took a long drawn pause that made her want to strangle something. She kept silent and waited.

 

“ _I know this is weird but it is important, and.. this is about your soulmark. What colour is it, Darcy?”_

 

And the cold sweat from her nightmare was still drying on her skin, her breath ragged and her mouth wide open and they had never ever dared to talk about their soulmarks in any way and the middle of night, hours away from each other didn't feel like the right place to start. Nothing felt like the right place to start.

 

She took a sip from the water bottle on her beside cabinet and then another and her hands were shaking so hard she wasn't sure if she wouldn't drop the phone any second.

 

National icon her ass. Fuck those months of friendship. She considered ending the call just out of principle.

 

“ _Darcy? Darcy please just answer the question._ ”

 

“How fucking dare you call me in the middle of the night and ask about that shitstorm of words on my thigh?”

 

Later she would apologize. Later she wouldn't be scared out of her mind and frustrated and shocked and tired and she would remember that he didn't know and she shouldn't blame him for that.

 

“ _Your thigh.._ ” He sounded so much more desperate than he had any right to be. ” _Darcy, I'm gonna explain everything but please answer.”_

 

She huffed indignantly and pushed her pyjama pants low enough to get a good glance at her godforsaken mark. In the unnatural light of her mobile screen it looked just as dark and threatening as it had been for almost five years now.

 

“Voguish black like the grim reaper's coat, asshole.” She snapped and heard him sigh deeply.

 

“ _Thank you, Darcy. I know from Jane that you never talk about this and I assumed.. yeah.. thank you.“_

 

“You talked to Jane about this?”

 

She was definitely going to buy a baseball bat made of steel.

 

“ _I'll.. I'll explain it all when I see you, I promise.”_ At least he had the decency to sound guilty.

 

“Yes. Yes, you will. And then we will never talk about this ever again.” Her words were final and she knew the conversation was over.

 

“ _Goodnight, Darcy._ ”

 

“The next time I see you!” The threat rung clear in her voice and she ended the call just to stare at the screen of her phone for what seemed like forever.

 

“Just wait until we meet again, Steve Rogers.” She mumbled into the dark.

 

Somehow he forget to tell her it wouldn't be for months to come.

 

 

*

 

Life since Jane knew was somehow better.

 

Not _good_ , not liberating in a way that would make her burn her bra and start putting profiles on dating websites but maybe well enough not to be strangled by the biting solitude that had attacked her every time she looked at her words for as long as she could remember. It had settled into a firm pressure so far.

 

Of course she knew it was bullshit. She had a loving family, caring and slightly overprotective friends and a job that made her feel more useful than she would have ever expected but..

Her family was in another time zone altogether, most of her friends currently scattered across the literal universe (yeah, Thor ruined that statistic) and Jane was so busy thinking she hardly found the time to form words.

 

But it had been bad before she told her. She had awoken every morning drenched in sweat.

The dreams had steadily worsened. More vibrant, more alive, more destructive..

 

Some days she had woken up with the taste of blood in her mouth. Had felt the punches thrown at her face that had once been implications drawn out and numbing and if she didn't know with google-approved certainty it was completely impossible she could have sworn there had been a bruise below her ribcage that hadn't been there the night before.

 

It was getting closer. She felt it in the pit of her stomach.

 

Then she opened her big mouth and suddenly the panic settled.

Suddenly Jane _knew_ and for the first time she wasn't ashamed about it. For the first time in all her life she told and didn't cower at the unwelcome assault of pity she had expected.

 

It wasn't alright per se. But now..

 

Now her nights were filled with shadows and the slight tingle of fear. Countless passing faces and dark alleys and images of a leather covered hand that was the only thing she could make out clearly.

 

Now it was confusion that greeted her in the evening instead of the terror she had become so accustomed to.

 

Or maybe she had simply accepted her fate.

 

Strangely enough it was Jane who grazed the topic again.

She probably wouldn't have. Everything there was to know about it had already left her lips and the only other thing that burned on her tongue felt even more shameful than the unfairness that appeared to be her destiny. Another tragic twist of fate she only dared to confront behind closed doors, in the middle of the night.

She had bared enough as it was.

 

Apparently Jane disagreed.

 

She was sitting on top of her desk, listening to some cheesy playlist she would take to the grave and sipped on her third cup of coffee. Still too early, still too tired.

Jane suddenly stopped scribbling weird mathematical equations in some important looking folder and just stared at her for at least 3 minutes straight.

 

Darcy just raised her brows in question and stared back.

 

“I've been thinking..” Jane begun and it took every ounce of energy her still sleep-deprived brain could muster not to roll her eyes at her friend.

 

“When exactly are you not thinking, Doctor Foster?”

 

The sharp look she threw her way didn't deserve any reaction. Still she held her hands up in surrender and waited for Jane to continue.

 

She looked too serious for it to be casual. Too tense for her to keep skipping from one stupid, silly love-song to the other and ignore her rambling like she would any other day.

Jane's eyes burned through her skull as if she was looking for answers Darcy didn't even know the question to. The suspension was making her palms sweat.

 

“Is it Steve?” She asked as if she wasn't sure she was allowed to and Darcy just gaped at her for a second. Ignoring every possible suggestion until Jane dared to spell it out for her.

 

“Is Steve _what_? Captain Dickhead with the mission to ignore all his Darcys with only a ' _don't worry, i'll be in touch_ '-text after whatever shit it was that went down in DC two weeks ago? Yes, he is.”

 

Yeah, it was also kind of a sore subject.

 

She had watched it on TV and gathered her facts on the internet instead of the source it should have come from. Anxious for days until she had finally gotten his message. His single text and his inability to answer his phone and it had been 14 days too many. He still hadn't explained the weird wake up call she never asked for or the agitation in his voice the last time they talked and she was angry and _worried_ and her new shiny baseball bat should have been put to use a fortnight ago.

 

“The helicarrier thing?”

 

“You've seen the news.. and now he's gone and no one's telling me anything because _it's the kind of information I don't have the necessary clearance for_ and which some asshole put behind some magical fucking firewall I can't get through.. TONY STARK I AM TALKING ABOUT YOU!”

 

Jane hmmed in consideration while Darcy flipped her finger at the security camera.

 

“I mean there's been everything uploaded to the internet besides the one fucking thing that would explain what he's up to.. or the multiple fucking things.. it's not like I know anything!”

 

The not so subtle cough of her friend snapped her out of the wave of frustration that tumbled out of her mouth.

 

“Is Steve your soulmate?” Jane finally said and Darcy forgot how to breathe.

For a moment she waited for the punch line. Jane just looked at her in concentration.

 

“Eww..” She pulled a face and shook her head a couple of times until the images finally left her brain. “Eww now.. Jane how? I mean forget his almost Thor-Level gorgeous face but.. Steve is like an overgrown toddler Jane! A century old baby-brother.. why are you implying I would ever sleep with my brother?”

 

“There's been no talk about sleeping with anyone.”

 

“Yeah, because we're 12 years old and screwing your soulmate would be totally out of the question.”

 

She crossed her arms like a scorned child and didn't think about how in her case this was the most probable option. Instead she tried her best to look offended.

 

“I've been thinking about this a lot,” Jane continued, settling herself next to Darcy on the desk with an expression that was a lot more serious than she felt comfortable with. A lot more serious than the topic of 'possible soulmate Steve Rogers' should ever be. Everything inside her clenched at the mere thought.

 

She would tell him about this in elaborate detail if ever dared to show himself again.

 

“The reappearances.. he was frozen for years... your weird youtube obsession with his documentaries...”

 

“I never told you about that!” She screeched but Jane just brushed her off. Still too absorbed in her ridiculous conjecture to notice the distress Darcy could no longer pretend not to feel.

 

“You felt intrigued by him even before you met him.. just like I was with everything about the universe I couldn't understand and.. and with the whole being frozen thing it just makes sense..”

 

“I wasn't..” but she wasn't ready to correct her. She had told Jane all about the terror that had come with her words but she wasn't ready to speak out loud about this. She wasn't ready to admit to the part of her that would always be 14 and filled with a sorrow she had no right to feel. A sorrow that belonged to Steve alone. Steve, who wasn't her soulmate. Who had claimed his place in another layer of her heart entirely.

 

“Everyone was obsessed with Captain America growing up.” She said instead. The half-truth sliding so much easier off her tongue than the reality behind the WWII folder on her laptop ever could and Jane just nodded at her, doubt still etched into her features as she put a soft hand on Darcy's shoulder.

 

“He's kept asking about your mark, you know?” She said as if it was what Darcy secretly wanted to hear. She swallowed the urge to pull another face.

 

“And you hadn't told me anything about it for years so.. I just always assumed they were dead.. and when I told him.. he looked so crushed, Darcy.”

 

She covered her eyes for a whole minute before she finally found the guts to turn back to Jane's face. So much sympathy in the slight curve of her smile. So much expectancy.

 

And Darcy didn't know what to answer.

 

As if Jane wanted to be the one to solve the problem once and for all and now it was her duty to put it right. It was a nice sentiment but the truth seethed hot behind her chest. Like an insult to everything she had resigned herself to never experience. Like being 'Steve Rogers soulmate' would be a _bad_ thing.

Somehow she felt almost sorry for her own apprehension. Mostly she just wanted Jane to shut up.

 

 _See Darcy, this is how it could be._ Rung the taunting voice inside her head.

 

It felt so wrong to even think about it.

 

_See Darcy, this is how it isn't._

 

She carefully planned out what she wanted to say.

 

“He is not. Think of my words.. do you really believe Steve could ever say something like that to me? And don't you believe you'd be the first to know if I lived to tell the tale?”

 

She got her with that. There was nothing she could come up with to argue a truth so absolute and she was waiting patiently for the apology that now clearly had to follow.

 

“I thought he might have read it off of your thigh or something. You two got so close so fast...”

 

Jane was convinced and Darcy was tired. It was too early for that kind of conversation. They should try again in 10 years or so.

 

“His first words to me were something like ' _I'm Steve_ '.. I don't even properly remember because he is not – and I say this for the last time – he is **not** my soulmate. Also, I've met Steve months before I even told you about the whole thing, it would have been a bit baseless, don't you think?” She crossed her arms again and looked at Jane with the best, most final frown she could muster.

 

“And I'm also super-tight with your boy candy. From like day one. Are you afraid I'll run off with him too?”

 

She chuckled at that. The seriousness finally leaving her face and she took a deep, exhausted breath before she smiled up to her with a grin that held a completely different implication.

 

“He just loves you because I do and it's really part of our bond.”

 

She winked at her and Darcy put her palms to her heart and gaped in an almost-truthful outrage.

 

“How **dare** you?” She spat and turned her head in fake-disdain as if she couldn't stand to look at Jane for just a second longer. “Our lightening-connection is strong and pure and untainted by your carnal sorcery!”

 

She managed a whole 20 seconds before her pout turned into a grin.

 

“But there might still be something out there for you.” Jane added and she brushed her off because _hope_ was not what she needed. Hope had made this whole thing worse to begin with.

What had helped through all this years hadn't been the naïve notion it could be different – it had been the assurance she'd be fine until it wasn't. The wish to make the most out of the numbered days she possessed rather than letting it clear her judgement more than it had to.

 

Jane's words still pierced into all the places she tried to keep below the surface.

 

“Do you think there could actually be some truth to that?” She asked instead and Jane stared at her knees for a moment. Again lost in thought.

 

“That a soulmate could feel a connection to the people close to their match?”

 

“Yeah.” Suddenly she was filled to the brim with trembling nerves.

 

“Maybe.” Jane answered and just like that she snapped out of it. Just like that everything Darcy could still add to the conversation tasted redundant inside her mouth. Their intimate bubble burst with a single word and Jane's attention already fading. She could observe how her eyes filled up with the searching look she had named 'the boss lady business stare' and knew that any attempt to stop her would be in vain.

Quietly Jane moved to get back to the work she had abandoned for far too long already.

 

She watched her retreating figure, the urgency etched back into her features as if it had never been gone; Took a deep breath as if it would help soothe the twitchy sensation behind her ribcage.

 

“Maybe..” Darcy repeated.

 

There was a sinking feeling inside her gut and it didn't feel like hope at all.

 

*

 

It took eight months until she finally found out what Steve had been up to and she had stopped being angry at him for at least six of them.

There were only so many violent urges she could pretend to keep herself occupied with until it became abundantly clear that foremost she didn't want to break his face – she missed her friend.

So she loaded herself with work, her position as Jane's 'personal assistant' slowly extending to the whole science department who were _just as bad, every single one of them_ until she didn't even have the time to _try_ to break through Tony's indestructible beast of a firewall anymore and simply fell into deep sleep whenever she tumbled home in the late hours of the evening.

For months she took every opportunity that came her way, threw herself into paperwork, double-checked scientific theses she even slowly started to understand and pretended not think of her missing friend or her impending doom or the fact that Jane had been trying to get her to _date_ for the last few weeks.

 

(“Jane, care to explain why this morning, when I walked into my office, some guy almost pissed himself trying to tell me he was there to 'break my face beyond recognition'?”

 

“..Nick? Nick is a nice guy. He might have mentioned he thought you were pretty.. I may have told him you found violent one-liners to be a hilarious way to say hello..”)

 

Yeah, she really didn't feel like thinking about that any further. She was also fairly certain 'Nick' was actually 'Noah' and Noah did not say her words any more than the next two accountants Jane had sent her way the following days.

 

Seriously, accountants. Like Jane didn't know her at all.

 

Steve would laugh his ass off once he heard about it.

 

She huffed in annoyance.

 

 _If_ he heard about it.

 

It had been months and months and she wasn't any wiser than she had been the night of the dreaded phone-call she had never told Jane about.

 

It had been almost as long as she had called him a friend and by now her façade of indifference was too cracked for even herself to believe in.

The possibility that he would not come home at all felt real and the mere thought still sat bitter at the back of her throat. No matter how loudly she proclaimed disinterest, she just couldn't get used to the fact that now, whenever she wanted to call to complain about work or share whatever exciting thing had happened he just wouldn't answer.

 

Like Steve Rogers had dropped off the face of the earth, not leaving the slightest hint of his whereabouts behind and she would have to re-accept him as only the legend he started out to be. It was a lot harder to pretend she wasn't agonising about that thought either.

 

Natasha had made her appearance known a couple of months ago and it had turned into a not entirely _un_ -suspicious routine of short, periodic visits every other week that frustrated her a lot more than she had the time to obsess over. She was also completely unwilling to give her any insight whatsoever.

 

“He made me promise not to tell you anything, before he could explain for himself.” She said after Darcy had cornered her for the first time. Ignoring the fact that she couldn't to anything to make a trained assassin talk even if she held her at gunpoint and Natasha had looked so conflicted she almost wanted to turn around and apologize. Back when she was still angry and the punching-bags in the gym she had never visited for any other reason ever before were still covered with pictures of his face.

Natasha had hugged her in a way that made her feel like there was so much more to the story than she could ever imagine and it didn't help settle the anxiety in the pit of her stomach in the slightest.

It didn't help that she was gone the next day, too and that every time she returned she only offered snippets of information that lay just as heavy on her chest as the whole _nothingness_ she had tried to ignore since D.C.

 

So he was MIA without explanation, supposedly working with some army dude called 'Sam Wilson', had apparently forgotten how to operate a cellphone, Natasha very much knew exactly what he was up to and the few files that might give her proper insight were securely hidden by Tony Stark, drunken shitface extraordinaire, himself.

 

And Jane was still busy switching between ignoring her bodily needs for science and the pathetic attempt to prove her death sentence wrong in ways that made her almost proud of her own self-restraint.

If the fact that she had yet to taser one of the ' _I'm gonna cut you into tiny pieces_ '-guys was anything to go by. She was half-convinced Jane actually paid them and it was just adding to the eternal headache ibuprofen couldn't do jack shit about.

 

If she put the past 24 years of her life into consideration it was painfully ironic that the only time she found peace these days was when she went to sleep.

 

For the first time in existence she had started looking forward to the end of her shifts for reasons that had nothing to do with exhaustion any longer.

 

Since Steve was gone.

Since the day she had spilled her guts to Jane her dreams had lost their disturbing nature bit by bit until there was no terror left to cry about in the morning. Since the shadows of her bedroom ceiling stopped to look like a foreboding sense of tragedy and turned simply black. Now there were colours and music and countries she had only read about. Rushed and slightly strained but new and exciting and she ceased to fear the unknown in the evening until she almost anticipated whatever sceneries or sounds she would experience this time. It felt a little like the travel around the world she always wanted but never had the time or money for and she eased into the slightly tense images of laughing children in the distance and the art and literature in languages she didn't understand but that felt so real as if she saw it in front of her own eyes.

 

For awhile she thought she could just forget how it had been all this years before. Forget the cold and the violence and the clashing steel and all the gory, abominable details that had hunted her for as long as she could remember.

 

Now she had become used to the calm that filled her nights. Could ignore the fear that still scratched at the corners of her mind, extenuated into a faint tickle, because now the blood was finally gone. Had been gone for eight months.

 

Until one night it wasn't.

 

It started out harmless enough. A gloved hand that gripped tightly around the back of a chair. A small apartment coloured in darkness and boisterous steps from outside the door. Heavy tension weighing down on their shoulders. The bitter taste of apprehension.

 

Then there were gunshots and _fear_ and images that changed in almost light velocity. Panic and screaming and bodies hitting the floor. Shattered glass and the crunching noise of breaking bones.

Blood on a hand that wasn't covered in leather. The hectic rush of relentless pursuit and suddenly the shadow of a man that felt so much larger than life. As if she was seeing through their eyes and this time just couldn't make out the details.

A voice that sounded familiar but too distant for her to place.

 

A nauseating wave of regret that overfilled her stomach until she didn't know how to breathe anymore.

 

The shadow that came closer..

 

Then she woke up.

 

Her wet t-shirt clung to her chest and her heart still hammered against her ribcage.

With shaking fingertips she gripped into her sheets, still too concentrated on her own trepidation to do anything else. Still too focused on the dampness of her cheeks that reminded her of everything she just couldn't outrun.

Her head was dizzy when she finally opened her eyes. She startled back at the motionless figure in front of her.

 

Natasha sat at the edge of her bed, a heavy-looking folder placed on her lap and an expression on her face that seemed to be torn between concern and relief and Darcy wasn't sure if she was completely hyperventilating or just needed a couple of seconds to catch her breath.

 

“Nightmare?”

 

Darcy just nodded. Not ready to explain to someone else what should have been only hers to deal with in the first place.

 

“What are you doing here?” She mumbled and her voice sounded raspy and weak and she still couldn't shake the flashing images that had assaulted her mind just seconds ago.

 

“Steve asked me to give you this.” Natasha answered and reluctantly shoved the folder onto Darcy's blanket. A flicker of uncertainty grazing her face for a moment before she shook her head as if she was having an entirely different conversation inside her head. She sighed and threw Darcy a smile that looked a lot more motherly than she ever expected from the Black Widow herself.

“He said he's texted you.” She added, already moving into the direction of the door as if the conversation was finished. People had a tendency to walk out on her lately. If it wasn't for the discomfort in her stomach she would try to stop her.

 

One hand already placed on the handle Natasha looked back once again and it felt like she knew so much more than Darcy would ever understand.

 

“I'm sorry we've kept this from you.”

 

Her tone was terminatory and the moment she left the room Darcy reached out for the battered cell-phone on her bedside cabinet; the massive pile of information still untouched on her lap and for a second she blinked at the yellowed paper that might hold all the answers she had been looking for for months.

 

There was a single unread text in her inbox.

 

_I finally found him. We're coming home._

 

Short and pregnant and vague enough to turn her eyes away from the mocking brightness of her screen. Rushed and simple as if she was nothing but a marginal afterthought.

 

And all her leftover frustration started screaming inside her head. Yelling about how this was how he chose to address her after _so long_ and for half a heartbeat she considered to just the delete the message and go back to sleep. Never talk to him again and ignore everything that had been.

 

But there was the doubt in Natasha's face that simply didn't belong there and the panic in his words the last time she heard them and a stack of paper in her lap that terrified her even more than her nightmares.

 

Her fingertips traced the black lines on the front page of the folder Natasha had left and suddenly she wasn't sure if she was ready to know everything they had kept hidden. Suddenly she feared every possible truth it might contain and for half an eternity she just stared at the bold letters that just didn't make sense to her.

 

 _'_ _Зимний Солдат_ _'_ she read, completely at loss of what it could even mean.

 

She swallowed the irrational hunch that kept on telling her this would change life as she knew it and flipped to the next page.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I did NOT expect such a reaction and I can't tell enough how incredibly happy each and every one who read and commented this made me. Thank you! This means so much to me. Just as I said before, this story is my baby and to see such response is just incredible. So here's chapter two, I hope it won't disappoint.

“ _We all have one foot in a fairytale, and the other in the abyss.”_

 

― _Paulo Coelho_

 

 

Tony Stark's office was known for the best bourbon and the worst company and right now she felt like she needed plenty of both.

 

She had read through the folder since the moment Natasha had left her room. For two weeks she had dug through the pages until every photograph was branded into her retina and she was certain she could recite it by heart. Until the letters started to blur into indistinct shades across the aged paper and language stopped making sense altogether.

 

Nothing made truly sense right now.

 

She didn't feel like facing the labs and Jane's thoughtful expression. She lacked the courage to seek out Natasha to add anything to the heap of information she never dared to deem possible. She didn't want to see Steve so he could try to explain.

 

She stared at the snifter between her fingertips, filled to the brim with an amber liquor that didn't burn her throat as bad as the truth and she took another sip, if only to get rid of the images that plagued her mind since the second she had turned the first page.

 

It didn't work. Her hands kept on shaking.

 

“Whenever I envisioned this moment before, you wore a lot less clothing and were certainly not stealing my booze.”

 

Tony rushed into the room with a strange mixture of amusement and precipitance around him and she downed her glass just to spite him.

 

“Consider it payment for the emotional trauma you put me through.” She spat a lot less playful than she intended and refilled her drink for the second time. He just studied her face for a moment.

 

“So what brings you to my office, Shawty? The lab rats finally pushing you to the limit?”

 

He sat back into the expensive-looking leather chair behind his desk and poured himself a drink of his own. Still too absorbed in everything she couldn't word, she clinked glasses in a way too experienced gesture to ever be considered healthy and didn't answer until she had emptied the snifter once again.

He refilled without question.

 

“You know how sometimes you just don't feel like surrounding yourself with people you actually like?”

 

She downed another and the soft buzz of the alcohol finally eased her brain enough to throw him a teasing smile. He just chuckled and shook his head as if nothing could be farther from the truth.

 

She didn't tell him that for a moment he was right.

For a moment she loved him with every part that wasn't consolidated by disbelief like the pictures she had kept staring at for 10 years now. Like the eternal frown etched into a face that seemed quite literally to be frozen in time. Like the disturbing photograph behind her eyes she was so certain to never forget.

Tony laughed and drank and didn't ask questions she wasn't ready to answer. Questions she finally had answers to.

 

With a sly wink he edged the carafe into her general direction and pushed a few buttons on his phone as if to give her a little privacy to nurse what had become concerning habit.

She took the bait until her head felt airy.

 

“Capsicle Rogers won't be here for at least the next 20 minutes, so you're quite welcome to hide out in here for the remain of it.” He smirked at her and looked back at his phone. “A lover's quarrel I suppose?”

 

It was close enough to the truth to sting but still far away from what had her crying her heart out just a few hours earlier and she just rolled her eyes, her nerves calmed sufficingly by the liquid courage running through her veins.

 

“Not you, too..” She whined, Jane's imputations still clear in her memory and she was painfully aware how much worse it felt now that she knew the reasons for his absence.

 

“Oh, there's a betting pool, darling. Barton's in for a hundred if you kiss Cap on sight.”

 

She laughed at that. The sound forced and empty even to her own ears and she decidedly ignored the sceptic lift of an eyebrow on Tony's face. Her knees were suddenly a lot more interesting than anything he could ever have to say.

 

They both kept quiet for awhile. The taste of bourbon stuck in her mouth and if he noticed how her hands started to shake again he didn't dare to remark. Her eyes strictly set on her legs in silence.

 

This wasn't the time to sink into nostalgia for the years that had been easier. For a truth that had been tragic and simple.

 

But it hadn't been. Not really. Not in the 45 years before she had even been born. Not when she had been 14 and cursed the heavens for an unfairness that shouldn't concern her. Not last year when she had held Steve's hand in the middle of the night remembering everything they still hadn't talked about.

 

The only thing simple was that she could claim ignorance. Tragic didn't even begin to cover it.

 

Tony's eyes were still glued to her face and she couldn't find it in herself to word a snarky reply. Couldn't let go of the names and the pictures and the horror that made her own so insignificant.

 

_70 years._

 

The photographs had been old but definite. The boyish grin distorted into the flesh-made perversion of Hydra. The trusted, cherished childhood friend brainwashed into the living, breathing nightmare that had terrorized the world for decades.

 

Hidden in the shadows he had been nothing but a gruesome rumour; A spine-chiller for new agents who deemed themselves immortal.

 

_The Winter Soldier._

 

Indestructible. Untraceable. The incarnated ghost-story of the century.

 

Until he shot Natasha in Odessa five years ago and turned into reality.

 

Until he killed Nick Fury and unmasked his face to the Captain himself.

 

Until she woke up with a folder thrust into her hands and too many answers to ever close her eyes again.

 

 _Bucky Barnes was still alive_.

 

The teenage-obsession she never properly let go of. The historic tragedy she had wailed for behind closed doors. The pregnant pause before every childhood story Steve had ever told her.

 _A kind, loyal soul_ , she had read in her school books.

 

Now there was enough blood on his hands to drown in it.

 

Bucky Barnes' existence had not been extinguished on that godforsaken train in 1945 as they all were made to believe. Tortured and twisted into an abominable myth he had been alive for the past 70 years and for the first time she wished he hadn't.

 

No amount of bourbon could wash away the sting it left.

 

There was only sorrow. Only a grief so torrid, it felt like it was carving right through her bones, despite everything she was supposed to feel instead.

 

Tony's phone made an annoying peeping sound and she didn't try to force another smile. There was an expression in his features, so intense it made her almost believe he could look right into her and he just waited in silence. A last brief moment of quiet. She shoved the once again filled snifter away from her and returned his stare in equal measure.

 

“Capsicle's Quinjet just landed.” He told her, his look trained on her face as if he worried she would snap any second.

And maybe she did. Her emotions probably drawn out across her forehead and a nervousness in her gut that made her shiver.

 

Tony gestured for her to stand up and placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

 

“Let's welcome your boyfriend.” He tried but it sounded flat and languid and he grimaced at her lack of response.

She slowly put one foot after the other and didn't turn to him.

 

“He brought company I heard.”

 

It wasn't the first time she wished she didn't know exactly what he was talking about. As always he enjoyed the sound of his own voice too much to pay attention.

 

“Birdyman and our very own Lee Harvey Oswald.”

 

Step after step. Sweat pooled in the palm of her hands and she pinched her wrist twice as if the pain could rid her of the urge to turn around and run. Tony's grip held her firmly in place.

 

“Remember the bet, Shawty. You could make Clint a happy man.”

 

Suddenly the elevator was right in front of them and it felt at least a week too early. Or a year. Or forever.

 

“For the last time, my patriotic devotion isn't all it's cracked up to be.” She hissed back at last, if only to distract herself from her staggering knees and watched her words paint a satisfied smirk onto Tony's lips.

 

“Kiss him yourself if you're _that_ desperate to see that mouth in action.”

 

He waggled his brows as if he was actually considering her notion and finally let go of her shoulder.

 

“The scandal would be marvellous.” He mumbled as if it actually meant a thing and stepped forward. For a moment she just looked at his back and gathered every ounce of bourbon-powered strength she could muster.

 

Tony just smiled at her.

 

Entirely unprepared and trice as terrified she followed him into the cabin.

 

 

*

 

She had just strode onto the tower's landing deck when warm arms encircled her.

Tony's rambling in the distance, still unable to drown out the hammering of her heart, she had tried to brace herself for whatever was about to come.

Then Steve was all around her. All at once she was engulfed by a well-known heat that surrounded everything before the cool September breeze could do as much as reach her skin and when he lifted her off the ground she didn't even attempt to push him away.

He was finally back and all of a sudden she felt like a child again.

 

With enough emotion to almost make her understand the rumours he sighed her name against the crown of her head and she wasn't sure if her lack of oxygen was due to the tightness of his embrace or the quiver of her nerves.

 

Maybe she could avoid everything by simply passing out.

 

There was a familiarity to his touch as if he had never been gone and it almost made her angry again. For three glorious seconds she wished for her baseball bat. She hugged him back instead.

 

“..come onnn...”

 

Clint's voice was low but demanding, she was painfully aware of the way his eyes burnt holes into the side of her face and for an instant she was torn between flipping him the bird and begging him to shut up. Not granting the archer the dignity of a reaction she chose to bury her cheeks in Steve's chest for a little bit longer. She was still not ready to lift her head.

 

“I missed you, asshole.” She whispered against his pecs and squeezed her eyes shut for another tiny moment. The vibration of Steve's chuckle tingled against her skin.

 

_Soon._

 

The suspension was palpable, absolute and bore down on her rocky knees.

 

_Any moment.._

 

She knew she couldn't postpone it forever. Couldn't simply stay in his arms until she forgot the way the strain corded up her airways or how the taste of bourbon only numbed her tongue. His smile was warm and joyful and it didn't ease the tense atmosphere he so clearly pretended to ignore. Didn't help her shaking hands or the tremble in her voice he so politely left uncommented.

 

“What a heartfelt reunion.” Tony interrupted and for once he sounded as pent-up as she felt.

 

Again there was a ping of affection wandering through her chest.

 

With a deep groan she felt herself put back to solid ground. With only a pinch of hesitation she forced herself to take a look at everything his broad shoulders had sheltered her from.

 

Armed guards were placed next to the entrance and for the first time she noticed the concern in Tony's face. Clint stood just a couple feet away from her, his arms folded across his chest and only now she realized the gun strapped to his thigh and the bow on his back; Stern lines etched into his forehead. Natasha was at his side as always, dressed in leather and an alertness so prominent it was almost tangible.

 

The lump in her throat grew heavier with the second.

 

She took a step back from the Captain America-shaped wall of protection she wanted to cower behind for the rest of her life and turned into the direction of the quinjet.

 

Next to them, maybe an arm's length away, stood a man she had never seen before. Tall, dark and handsome just like the rest of the supernatural bunch that had infiltrated her life so irrevocably and the second he noticed her eyes on him he threw her a cheeky grin.

 

“Sam Wilson, it's a pleasure.”

 

He sounded cordial and genuine and there was a flirtatious edge to his tone, that would have greater woman blush. She swallowed the urge to grimace and shook the hand he offered.

There was panic in the back of her head, still rising until it seemed to overflow her and she needed all the concentration her tipsy brain was able to procure to keep her attention on his ridiculously attractive person.

 

“Likewise. Darcy Lewis.” Her voice sounded so much colder than she intended.

 

There were his eyes, roaming her from head to toe and it left her utterly indifferent.

 

In a way she felt sorry about it.

 

He probably deserved better. She was certain Sam Wilson was a wonderful, interesting man. Whoever had Steve's back was good in her books and this was probably the beginning of a wonderful friendship, but for now she didn't feel like returning his smile. In this instance, he was a mere distraction from the inevitable contact that seemed only moments away.

 

There would be time for this later.

 

Once the dread had been dealt with and the bile taste in her mouth would be gone and forgotten and she'd remember her manners. Right now she didn't reward the appreciating wink with even the slightest reaction. Right now there was nothing less important.

 

He let go of her and she tried to focus on her breath as if it would help the almost hysterical anticipation that seeped through every inch of her.

 

There was a small movement in the corner of her eye. There was fear seeping through every part of her.

 

In front of the Quinjet, an ample distance from the abundance of Avengers and guards and _her_ stood the once again motionless figure of the person she had cried for since the age fourteen. The living image of the teenage fantasy that had never stopped haunting her. A man claimed dead and gone by history itself.

 

And she couldn't tear her eyes away from him.

Even if she wanted to. Even if the whole fucking world would light up in flames she wouldn't dare to let her sight waver.

 

And James Buchanan Barnes was looking back.

 

He didn't appear to be much older than he had been in her school book pictures but there was no hint of youth left in his features. No playful twinkle in his stiff demeanour. Long strands of unkempt hair fell into his vision and she was certain the tac gear on his brawny stature had seen better days. Without the slightest stir he watched her. Calculated and distant and suddenly she felt alarmingly sober. Suddenly there was nothing besides the way he studied her face and she blinked away all the treacherous tears that threatened to build up _again_.

 

_He was alive and right in front of her._

 

His frown was solid and his eyes darker than she remembered. Devoid of the mischievous glint she was used to. So unlike the charming smile she had spent so much longer obsessing over than she was ever willing to admit.

 

But his chest was heaving with every breath he took and just like that it was enough not to subdue to the crushing anxiety that filled her to the very core.

 

She didn't know how long they simply stared at each other.

His arms crossed and hers turned to jelly. Facing a reality she had thought impossible.

 

She took a step into his direction, unsure what exactly it was she needed to be so much closer for and watched his frown darken the same moment Steve raised his voice.

 

“Buck. This is my friend Darcy.” There was a heavy arm across her shoulders and she noticed a flicker of disbelief ghost over his features. It was gone as fast as it appeared.

 

“Darcy, this is Bucky Barnes. The only reason I haven't died before WWII even started.”

 

The firm grip froze every possible movement she shouldn't even dare to make to begin with and in complete astonishment she witnessed how Barnes' solemn expression eased into a slight smirk.

 

“Not for your lack of trying, punk.” His voice was low and raspy from disuse and for a fleeting moment she could see traces of the men she had read about in the intimidating presence he had become.

 

Hard lines and bulging muscles where once a sweetness had been that had made her heart flutter.

Looking every part the lethal demon they had turned him into.

 

Barnes' gaze found her eyes once again and he nodded at her in acknowledgement. Lost for words she simply nodded back. Her throat dry and choked with uncertainty.

 

She clenched her fists and didn't allow herself to feel scared about it. Too stunned and overwhelmed by the thousands of things she wanted to say but couldn't. Her vocal cords had turned to stone, her brain was in overload and she just wanted to stay, take notes of every move he made and pretend it was her inner history nerd talking.

 

“This is all very touching, but we're on a tight schedule, people.”

 

The spell wasn't broken, not entirely, but without another minute to spare Tony started to usher them inside and it was only then that she noticed the travel bags next to the soldier's feet. New and stuffed and _like he was here to stay_.

It probably wasn't the reason her knees started to shake again. It couldn't be because he kept glancing at her face.

 

She would blame the sweat that run down her back on Steve's proximity.

 

From there on it felt a bit easier. Like she was going through the motions. Like the only thing remarkable was her friend, right beside her for the first time in almost nine months and she only imagined the leeriness in Clint's expression or the tightness in Tony's jaw. Natasha and the scrutiny in her observance. Steve's hand that held on just a little too tight.

The surrealism of it all sucked the air right out of her and if it wasn't for the steady pressure on her shoulder she was certain she would stumble. Closemouthed and afoul she let herself be led back to the tower entry and tried not to think about the way her head felt once again dizzy from the dull sound of the footsteps behind her. Or maybe the bourbon.

 

When they reached the building the silence was deafening. With four avengers, Cap's new army buddy, a dozen guards and one particular stoic Winter Soldier crammed into the elevator Darcy felt like a caged animal.

He stood to her left, as much distance between him and everyone else as the limited space allowed, his looming stature once again completely void of motion and it was only the swift peek at his face that told of shared sentiment. And that he might be seconds away from throwing up.

With all the well-trained composure she still possessed she forced herself not to linger.

 

The tension around them was still tactile but confined into his own walls at least Tony seemed more at ease and it wasn't long until he turned back into his babbling self they all knew and contemned.

 

“Wilson, ask for Jarvis - you're taking Barnes to Cap's quarters.” He ordered once the doors opened again and didn't wait for agreement before he stalked out of the cabin.“Nat, Barton, Rogers and Shawty – to my office.”

 

The finality of his tone left no room for disobedience and with one doubtful glance at Barnes' stiff posture Steve slowly steered her into the direction Clint and Natasha had already followed.

 

“I'll be back as soon as I can.” He promised, his steps suddenly halted and he twirled back to his friend with all the urgency she only knew when it came to Jane and science. She almost laughed at the mother-like concern in his voice. Almost. If it wasn't for the lump in her throat, the size of Stark's ego, that still made it too hard for her to do anything but breathe.

 

“Scram, punk.” Barnes replied but there was a softness to his words she didn't expect from the rough exterior he presented. He rolled his eyes and gestured to the amused man next to him. “Got my personal bodyguard right here to keep me in check if anything goes south.”

 

Sam pointed to his gun and mumbled something that sounded disturbingly similar to 'please misbehave' before he threw them a grin that couldn't be more fake.

Steve wasn't convinced. His brows still furrowed in worry, he switched from one foot to the other like an impatient child and Darcy gave his arm a tentative squeeze if only to remind him she was still there. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Barnes' follow her movement and for a second she thought she saw the shadow of a smile on his lips. For a second she wasn't entirely sure she wasn't dreaming. The mere notion too human, too surreal to wrap her head around it and before she could even attempt to respond, react, do _anything_ , it was gone and he had turned his attention back to the Captain.

 

“It's impolite to keep a dame waiting, Stevie, thought your ma raised you better than this.” He said, the mock-reproval dripping from his tone and he bobbed his chin expectantly. She just stood there waiting. Slowly accepting that she was awake and everything didn't simply happen inside her head. Barnes' banter so insistent and _alive_ and she wasn't sure what it was she had expected but felt almost ashamed of how much it surprised her. It took Steve another three sighs and one minute of meaningful staring before he nodded in resignation and started to move again.

 

“You're right.. of course..” He mumbled, more to himself than anything and pulled her along the hallway to Tony's office.

 

 _It will be fine._ She repeated the words inside her head like a mantra and denied any inkling of doubt that attempted to take root. More than anything she needed to believe that this was real. That the hard part was over. Now that he was back and the worst had been dealt with. She didn't dare to consider all the ways this could go wrong, just tightened the grip on his arm and threw a last glance over her shoulder as the elevator doors shut close.

The fleeting glimpse of Barnes' face this time was almost peaceful.

 

For now that had to be enough.

 

 

*

 

The filled snifter she had left behind was still on Tony's desk when they finally arrived. This time she didn't even think about reaching for it.

 

“Time is money.” He said tauntingly as if there had ever been any need for him to worry about it and it made her snort in resentment.

 

His face was completely unimpressed and somehow she felt annoyed about that too.

 

But annoyance was good. Annoyance meant the shell-shocked state of disbelief that had taken over her these last hours finally started to volatilize and she was ready to feel like herself again. Like the firm grip of sorrow slowly loosened and she could actually start concentrating on the things she could do. No longer immobilized by the helplessness that just kept on scratching on her insides as if it wanted to rip them apart.

She tried really hard not to think about his face to pretend for a little longer.

 

“Just ignore him and let's get this over with.”

 

Natasha's expression was pensive but warm and she liked looking at her so much better than paying any attention to Tony's accusatory stare. Avoiding anything that might lead to unnecessary discussion she took the seat right next to her.

 

“So there's no need to beat around the bush, people, we all know why we're here.” Stark begun and betrayed his own words the same instant. Taking sip after sip from her abandoned snifter he looked at each of them meaningfully before he cleared his throat in emphasis. Again there was a knot building in the pit of her stomach.

 

“Thanks to our dear Captain, the inside threat level of what we all call home just multiplied for the unforeseeable future.”

 

She didn't need to turn to Steve to know he was shaking his head.

 

“That's not..” He started but Tony brushed him off with the clap of his hands and a sharp look that again told of details she was clearly missing. He slumped into his seat with his lips pressed into a straight line as Tony downed her drink and continued.

 

“Do not underestimate the risk, Rogers, remember that despite everything I agreed for him to come here.”

 

She could almost smell the guilt that radiated from his wide frame and felt left out for what was so far from the first time since she had moved into the tower, she had lost count.

 

“You've all read the file. What's on our hands isn't just a traumatized POW. Hydra basically turned him into a gun with no safety switch. We're dealing with a brainwashed super-soldier with a history of assassinations long enough to make all of us look innocent. There need to be precautions.”

 

He gestured for Steve to talk and Darcy regretted not to have taken her drink when she still had had the chance. She didn't know him like that. Wasn't used to the stern expression and the harsh edge in his voice and a small part of her knew that he wasn't completely wrong. Everything else despised the way he talked about it. Like Barnes wasn't even a person but a mere weapon instead.

There was a whisper in her head telling her she couldn't be sure if that wasn't true as well, but her heart clenched and she didn't feel like listening. She just looked ahead and kept quiet.

 

“That's just the tip of the iceberg, Tony.” Steve sounded pleading and it didn't help the sadness that already started to pool up again.

 

“What Hydra did to him.. made him do.. that wasn't Bucky. He didn't even know who he was.. he.. he's remembering, Tony. I admit that he's not.. all there yet, but he's still Bucky. He got a glimpse of who he is and left them behind. He controls himself now. He's not their weapon anymore, he's my best friend.”

 

“That's a beautiful sentiment and all, Cap, but what if he doesn't? What if he didn't?”

 

She felt a combative swirl emerge and bit her tongue.

 

“We checked everything he has been up to since DC, he hasn't hurt anyone since he's been on the run, not until...”

 

“Until you found him.” Natasha cut in and the contemplation on her face made Darcy's skin crawl. “I'm not trying to stab you in the back, fossil, but don't you think someone like the Winter Soldier would be able to cover up his tracks if he wanted to?”

 

“That's the point!” Now there was desperation. “He has been trained for nothing but efficiency for 70 years. I probably wouldn't even have found him if he hadn't decided to let me. He remembers who he was, who we were and let his guard down. The only problem was that once we got there, Hydra found him too.”

 

The severity of her compassion was almost physical.

There was pain in the implication and Darcy understood.

 

“And they just let him go? Just like that? Allowing their deadliest asset to run off into sunset with stars 'n' stripes - Doesn't that seem a little suspicious to you?”

 

The agitation in Tony's voice matched her own but this time it wasn't affection that filled her chest when she looked at him.

 

“He killed them, Tony, he killed every single Hydra goon I didn't get to first. Why do you think it took us two weeks to get back from Berlin? They were on his trail too and they didn't aim for capture. He is not their freaking _asset_ , he wants them gone as much as every single one us.”

 

There was a pregnant pause and the deep frown in Tony's face slumped a little.

 

“Just because he _isn't_ Hydra doesn't mean they're not still using him.” He said but the rigour was gone from his tone.

 

“He's trying to be a person again, he wants to remember.. give him a chance.”

 

Steve didn't even try to hide his vulnerability anymore. Her fingers twitched to reach out for him.

 

“Considering we could all be dead by tomorrow because of this, I should have probably shot him on sight. But yes. Fine. Let's believe in the good in former soviet assassins. He will be evaluated – today. Checked for any kind of dormant Hydra programming that might be left. His access will be restricted to the upper quarters until further notice and the second he jumps out of line you are held responsible.”

 

“He won't. I promise. If anything were to happen I'll stop him myself.”

 

Tony nodded but it was clear he still wasn't finished.

 

“Therapy will be mandatory. If he is as much of a person as you claim he is, PTSD is pretty much a given. There will be no civilian contact until we've calculated the risk of what could possibly trigger anything an ordinary human wouldn't survive.”

 

“He is not a monster.” Steve said with so much determination in his voice she couldn't bring herself to even consider the possibility he might be wrong.

 

“You might be the only one who believes that, Captain.”

 

This time there was a pity in Tony's eyes that stung almost worse than his words. Like it was a sole indulgence he granted. Like there couldn't be anything left that would be worth saving.

 

Then he smiled and the loaded atmosphere slowly lifted until she felt like she could properly breathe again.

 

“Also, there will be continuous reassessments of his appendage. By me. Whenever I want to.”

She had spent enough time with Jane's obsessions to understand the selfishness that underlined his compliance. She knew him well enough to see that, for whatever reason, maybe that was what he needed to believe.

 

“I'll talk to him.” Steve promised and they shared a look of agreement so drenched in reservation she almost wanted to flee the room just so she didn't have to witness it any longer. So uncomfortable by the poorly disguised secrecy that run along their discussion, engaging everyone in conversation _but her_ and she was half-way ready to move from her seat when Tony's attention sharply snapped to her.

 

“And now to you, Lewis.” He proclaimed and it sounded weird for him to actually refer to her by name. “I'm well aware that your pigheaded tendencies won't let me apply the 'no civilian' rule to you, but you are under no circumstances allowed to engage in any kind of unsupervised contact.”

 

Darcy just blinked a couple of times.

 

“What? What makes you even think I..” She begun, vindication already burning at the tip of her tongue but Tony interrupted before it had any chance to reach him.

 

“Because I _know_ you. Your uncanny ability to pick up strays wherever you go led to this mass-adoption we now call 'friendship' in the first place. Don't pretend caring for people isn't your brand of heroin.”

 

He kind of had a point. She would never admit it to his face.

 

“How dare you? I am perfectly capable to prioritize my own well-being when it is called for.”

 

He snorted and to her left she caught the low chuckle that sounded distinctly like Clint.

 

“You are really not.”

 

She flipped Clint the bird, her evil eye still firmly concentrated on the smirking man in front of her and groaned in another bout of disgruntlement.

 

“You're all wrong. Besides, I am certain he isn't half as dangerous as you keep rambling on about.” She tried and ignored the way Clint's chuckle grew into laughter.

 

“And there is the point I was trying to make, thank you.”

 

There was a lot more outrage in Tony's tone than appropriate and he switched back to the serious look she had seen often enough today alone to last a lifetime.

 

“This is not a joke, Shawty. Barnes is on a level of enhancement your taser can't handle. You are not even remotely capable to pose any resistance if push came to shove. He could snap your neck faster than it would take for you to blink.”

 

She knew he was right. Of course she was aware of her own insufficiencies compared to the freaking guild of superheroes around here. She understood Super-Soldier-Serum. She had tried punching Steve before and almost broke her hand in the process. She couldn't even shove him off a goddamn couch for fuck's sake.

 

This didn't mean she should ease his doubt.

 

“Gee, thanks, dad. Way to make a girl feel confident in her abilities.”

 

He was starting to get really irritated. It was so apparent in the deep set frown and the piercing relentlessness of his eyes that looked down on her as if she was a revolting teenager. In a way he made her feel like one too.

 

“Darcy. Just don't confuse him with a lost puppy you got to save.”

 

There was hint of fondness in between and she choose not to dwell on it.

 

“Alright!” She replied after a long-stretched second, just to stop the intensity of his stare. “I think I'm gonna try the 'human-angle' though, I'm really not feeling that whole 'talking about people like they're animals or objects' thing you got going on here.”

 

He sighed in exasperation and for a moment he really reminded her of her father. It helped dilute her urge for provocation slightly.

 

“Yeah, okay. But just because I want you to be able to sleep at night and not because I'm intimidated by the fact that you actually sign my pay-checks.”

 

And just like that his posture softened and he once again looked like the man she knew.

 

“It's actually Pepper, if we're being honest.” He said a tad too casual and there was a slight smirk ghosting over the edges of his lips that almost made her smile too.

 

If it wasn't for the exquisite opportunity he had just given her.

 

“Did you just publicly admit to the forgery of official documents?”

 

She made a mental note to request the security-footage of their conversation from Jarvis later on and crossed her arms in the best imitation of indignation she could manage.

 

“I'd hardly call my office public..” He trailed off but there was the glint of pride in his eyes and she only let it slide when she felt the swift brush of Steve's fingertips against her wrist.

 

He stood next to her chair, expectantly offering his hand like the gentleman he was and she hesitated just long enough for him to pout. It made him look like a huge, muscular infant and all her maternal instincts Tony should know absolutely nothing about rushed her to reach out for him. He nodded as he pulled her to her feet.

 

“We still need to talk.” He said and with a look to his prompting expression, the moment she had awaited for almost nine fucking months so close, she felt like there was nothing she desired less.

 

Not now. Not when her shuddering heart had finally found its regular pace and the smothering worry had decreased into a mere scraping at the back of her head again.

 

Of course it couldn't last longer than five minutes.

 

But this was _Steve_ , her friend and the reason she had become part of this in the first place and those eyes were just too damn pleading to deny. So with a last wave to Clint and Natasha and a stuck out tongue at Tony she let him lead her out of the office. Again there was a wobble in her step she could never get used to.

 

He didn't say a word until the elevator door was closing behind them but the anticipation wasn't quite as bad as she had expected. No matter the countless things that still remained unsaid, being alone with Steve after so many months felt familiar and secure, even if it was in silence.

Even if the treacherous emotion just kept on bubbling up and she bit her lip to stop herself from succumbing to the pathetic need for sentimentality that should make place for reason.

 

“I really missed you.” She still whispered and he smiled a lot more relaxed than he had since she had first lain eyes on him not even an hour ago.

 

“I'm really sorry for how I handled things.” He said and once again put an arm around her shoulder.

 

Yeah, that habit might be partially at fault of the gossip too.

 

“Then why did you?”

 

More silence.

 

She noticed that the button he had pressed was to the floor of her apartment.

 

“I wasn't sure how much hope there really was. I couldn't tell for sure if I was just tilting windmills or if he'd be there at the end and I knew it could literally kill me if he wasn't. If he had still been just the Winter Soldier there's a chance I wouldn't be here now.. and I thought if you knew what I was up to, you wouldn't approve. Natasha didn't.”

 

The words stumbled out of him, like the kind of thing one practised beforehand just to fail at the delivery and in some ways it helped that he was nervous too.

 

“But Natasha knew everything.” She argued.

 

“Mostly. Called it madness, though. You read the file, you know what he did to her when he was still with Hydra and she's a lot smarter about her safety than I am. It could have been a suicide mission and I thought once you knew you might try to stop me.”

 

She poked his shoulder and squinched up her nose. It smelled strangely like bullshit.

 

“As if I could stop you from anything you think is right. I'd really love to have that kind of power but we both know I don't. Besides he is your best friend. I get it. You thought he was dead and now he isn't. I'd be the last to tell you to walk away from that.”

 

She'd be the first to jump onto the bandwagon but he didn't need to know that. Shouldn't know that. For his already challenged sanity as much as her own.

 

“Still.. If I had kept you informed there might have been a chance that he would have had retraced it. If he was still under their control you could have become a target yourself. Just because of your connection to me. I could never forgive myself if he had killed you just to spite me.”

 

Now it started to sound a lot like excuses.

 

“Come on! I live in the freaking Avengers Tower, there's no way to get in here. And in case you forgot: Thor is basically my god-in-law, as if he and Mew-Mew would let anything close enough to do any damage.”

 

She conveniently forgot to add that Thor was still in Asgard and shrugged her shoulders in a nonchalance only Clint could outgun. This wasn't the place to back down.

 

“Darce, you really need to stop underestimating what he could do.”

 

But she didn't. Even if he would never understand the extent of it. Even if she pretended to make light of his danger just so she could still see the man behind the blood. She had read the file so many times she could write her masters thesis about it without double-checking once. She knew how the serum and Hydra had shaped him into something so deadly that not even the terrifying rumours that had been spun around him could ever do it justice. That unlike Steve and his unwavering goodness he had been trimmed to kill without leaving a trace and that Tony was right. No matter how bad she wanted to deny every sentence that had left his lips; She knew with crystal clarity that she was once again the weak link. That if at any point in her future there was an escalation there would be nothing she could do about it.

 

But Darcy refused to live in fear. Terror had been her seatmate for as long as she could remember and if there was any good in Barnes she would choose to concentrate on that and that alone. She had become so used to accept the way things would end bad for her there wasn't any energy left to agonize about it. There was no place for anything else to keep her up at night. Only sadness and anger at the unfairness he had faced. Like a deep set solidarity for anything he had never gotten the chance to become. Just like everything she had wished for when she was younger and words like 'hope' and 'future' had still carried meaning.

 

It was hard to explain. It wasn't like she could relate to him in a way that didn't feel exaggerated to the point of presumption. It wasn't like she could ever claim to understand. But they had both started out to be the perpetual supporting characters of the heroes around them and while death had coloured his past, it was the only thing she could see ahead of her and somehow that made her feel something. Even if she couldn't put it into words. Even if the only thing she could do was to promise herself to never treat him like anything other but the person she so desperately hoped he could still be.

If nothing else, it was a good place to start.

 

“Now you sound just like Tony.” She mumbled into his arm and he pulled her a little closer.

 

“Tony might have a point here.” He replied and scrunched up his face as if it left a sour taste in his mouth to even admit it.

 

“Yeah, he wasn't completely wrong but he was also an asshole about it.”

 

She also kinda wished he would take it back.

 

Her statement put another smile on his lips and he nodded a couple of times, too eager for comfort and for a moment she wanted to just laugh and leave it at that before he could return to the thoughtful expression that had almost become second nature.

 

“But I did find him. He wasn't just the Soldier.. he's.. there's a lot he's gotta work through.”

 

It became once again apparent that mind-reading wasn't part of his enhancement.

 

“So when do I get to _properly_ meet the man that stole you away from me for so long? If Iron Crock's so dead-set on interfering it might be the start of something truly great.”

 

Steve seemed to tense at that and she peeked up to him, unsure of what exactly she said this time that deserved the reaction.

 

“Not for a while, I think. Not until he's .. more stable.”

 

“But you said he'd adore me.” She whined, suddenly too impatient to keep her cool just a second longer.

 

“I never said that.”

 

“You heavily implied it. And I promise I'll be careful, keep down my hysterics, do nothing to provoke. You know I'm a kick-ass pop-culture tutor – every guy your age is in desperate need of that.”

 

The sharp ping of their arrival stopped the onslaught of reasons she already had prepared and Steve ruffled her hair with a mixture of affection and exasperation in his features.

 

“I think about it.” Steve said in a voice that left no room for discussion and gave her a soft shove out of the elevator she would certainly not leave unpunished. She stumbled to find her balance for a moment and it was just long enough for him to press the next button.

 

“Assface!” She yelled at the closed door and immediately heard him chuckle from behind it.

 

“I'm not giving up so easily, Rogers, just wait and see.” She grumbled into her non-existent beard and stared for a while at the space where his stupid mug should be. The one she so urgently wanted to bash in.

 

Once again she was convinced there were pieces to the puzzle she was missing. Like somehow she was simply looking into all the wrong directions and in between the entrapment of his sadness he had found the time to still make her the butt of a joke she couldn't quite grasp yet.

 

 _'He might have won this battle,'_ she thought.

 

Yeah, there's was certainly something about a war.

 

With an incredulous shake of her fist and a lot less satisfied than she had hoped to be she slowly made her way back to her apartment. Steve's face already decorating another punching-bag inside her head.

 

It wasn't until she had kicked her boots through the living-room that she realized he hadn't explained the phone call.

 

 

*

 

When she drifted off that night the pictures were indistinct.

 

At first she didn't worry. In the great scheme of Darcy Lewis sleep had never been easy and logically, she shouldn't be surprised about it. Despite the months of Steve's absence this was a fact she had learned to accept like so many things.

 

The sky was blue, the earth was round and sleep could never really cure exhaustion.

 

Blurried shadows should be the least of her concerns. Compared to everything she had seen, a relief even.

 

There was no relief in any of this.

 

“ _Are you ready?”_

 

There was the nagging sense of dread and the restricting touch of metal against her wrists and she didn't understand why all at once she felt so much more _present_ inside this dream, that wasn't even truly hers, than she had for months, years, maybe all her life.

 

“ _This might be uncomfortable.”_

 

The voice was clear and adamant and she had heard it before but it felt too far away for recognition. Too preoccupied by the oppressing disquiet that blended into her own anxiety until there was nothing left besides the crashing waves of emotion that bowled over any strand of rationally she could no longer cling to. As if she was wide awake, inside someone else's head and it was their anguish that took her apart.

 

“ _3..._ “

 

Darkness swirled around her like smoke and her eyes burnt at the glimmer of _something_ in the distance.

 

“ _2...”_

 

Flashes of red, of heat, of dirt. The bile taste of guilt.

 

“ _1...”_

 

The image of a face for a split second.

 

“ _Do it!”_

 

Then there was pain.

 

Not like the headaches she was used to or the broken arm, when she was eleven and her brother had pushed her down the stairs. So much more than anything she had ever dared to envision.

 

Pure agony took over. Biting, bursting, melting through her brain like it was trying to pull her asunder. A torrid hellfire unfurling inside her veins, boiling her blood and cutting through her mind as if it was looking for something to shred to pieces. Leaving _nothing_ in its wake.

 

She wanted to scream, to fight, to die, do _anything_ to make it stop.

 

It lasted for hours or five minutes. Time was only theoretical, torment pervasive and it was with an ear-splitting cry that she finally awoke. The walls around her, now familiar and there was a metallic tang inside her mouth and a silence that seemed to taunt her.

 

Her breathing was erratic and her chest hurt in a way that made her almost relish in the sensation of its existence. She checked her forearms and found no alleviation in their bareness. Too fresh were the pictures inside her head, the emotion, the fear and the torture.

 

_The flicker of something she knew better than anyone._

 

She emptied a whole bottle of water before she dared to continue the thought. Dared to acknowledge that for the first time she couldn't pretend it was only the fear of a _someday_ that was not yet close enough to be real. That this was substantial and approaching and physical in the way it still made her stomach clench in a terror she had been foolish to ever resign herself to.

 

_That the face had been her own._

 

For the rest of the night she couldn't close her eyes again.

 

 

*

 

“You look like shit.” Jane greeted her one morning, a few days and heavily medicated nights later and she would be offended if she wasn't so surprised Jane actually looked up from the mountains of notes and devices around her to acknowledge her presence. If it wasn't almost a compliment.

There were dark circles underneath Darcy's puffy eyes no amount of concealer could ever disguise and not enough caffeine in the whole wide universe to give her the ample dose of energy she needed to fake a smile. Just the quiver in her steps she hoped Jane wouldn't notice and the panic that for once wasn't only a remote inkling but eminent.

 

She tried to bury herself in work until she could longer think and just kept on looking over her shoulder.

 

Jane was a happy camper. Drowning in the prospect of the break-through that was _'so close I can feel it, Darcy'_ and completely oblivious to all the struggle it took to uphold her façade of stability. Somehow she was almost thankful that next to an _Einstein-Rosen bridge_ nutrition was secondary. At least this meant she was useful. To be occupied with the maintenance of survival of one Doctor Jane Foster was preferable to the screaming inside her head or the whiff of disappointment she couldn't truly shake.

 

Better than the certainty that now even her numbered days were shortened.

 

That after all this years she was finally on the radar.

 

She had never understood what exactly her dreams meant. If it was their life she was seeing, their nightmares she was riding shotgun or just an obscure warning for everything that was about to come. Or if maybe her therapist had been right.

She had never met a person who shared what was her reality since she had been 5 years old and the only information she had found on the internet were romantic notions that felt derisive in comparison.

 

The sound of laughter maybe, the glint of a smile or sometimes, in the odd case of heroic Hollywood bullshit they had seen their face.

 

Never the blood or the pain or _their own fucking grimace._

 

Every part of her wanted to reject the singularity she had once longed for. An uniqueness she had idealized in terms of victory and wonder and _never like that._ Not in the way that made her fear what was considered blessing for everyone she had ever met or what the sardonic parts of her brain held accountable for the fact that her eating habits had yet to result in obesity.

 

Darcy was petrified and this time there was no shoulder to hide behind.

 

Not Thor's, who still hadn't returned from Asgard and whose enthusiasm concerning ' _the powerful magic of twin flames_ ' was too absolute for even her mortal fear to subdue anyway and not Jane's, who was so absorbed in everything she had almost killed herself over for years now, she didn't know what it would take for her to snap out of it. She wouldn't dare to wipe the elation from her expression. Even if she found the courage. The certitude of her own demise wrapped around her neck to cord up her airways and left no room for any words to escape.

 

She felt hamstrung and desperate. She wanted to seek refuge in Steve's arms and pretend there was nothing to keep her up at night.

But it was just as futile as any soupçon of hope she had ever experienced.

 

It had been a week and it became apparent that having Steve back in her life didn't exactly mean he was back in her life yet.

 

But she understood. She was sure she would do the same if the roles were reversed. She couldn't blame him for something he had no idea was happening in the first place. What she wouldn't even be able to explain if he took the time to ask.

 

It wasn't like he went purposefully out of his way to avoid her. They were still friends, he wasn't ignoring her calls this time and when their paths crossed there was still the familiar warmth in his smile but now he was engaged in responsibilities greater than her and she knew what was at stake.

 

Barnes' evaluation hadn't been what he had hoped for.

 

For seven days now his time was spent in the upper labs of the tower for which she – once again – didn't have the necessary clearance to access. From what she gathered so far she wasn't all too angry about it.

 

She didn't know much. Apparently the traces Hydra left were far more ingrained than expected and their attempts to eradicate his programming were further complicated by the healing properties of the serum.

 

Clint had tried to explain it to her one evening but she wasn't sure if he understood most of it himself and Bruce, Doctor Cho and Tony were still too busy literally picking Barnes' brain to offer commentary.

 

Sometimes she heard him scream.

When the medication she had stolen from Tony's office wasn't enough anymore and she snuck into the communal kitchen in the middle of the night just to occupy herself somehow. Even muffled by the doors, that just wouldn't open for her, the noise had been blood-curling.

She didn't even want to imagine what it felt like to witness the process. The sounds so gut-wrenching, she couldn't allow herself to consider the sheer suffering Barnes must experience since the day of his arrival. The years before. Every waking moment since 1945.

 

She would turn her back to the walls and curse herself that she left her ipod in her living-room.

She would forget it again every night that followed.

 

Next to her own agonal state her heart still went out for him.

 

“Weird dream, that's all.” She answered instead but Jane had already stopped paying attention.

 

Part of her wished she could too.

 

 

*

 

Darcy was stress-baking.

 

It was somewhere close to 2 am, there was flour on every possible surface of the kitchen she inhabited and she was around 85% certain Pepper wouldn't be all too happy about it. _“You spoil them.”_ She would say and her voice would sound stern and exhausted _“None of those idiots deserve it.”_

Some days she would argue they did. Most days she was just inclined to agree.

 

The entirety of the communal space filled with the sweet smell of blueberry muffins as she put the next round of dough into the mould and didn't dare to pay attention to her twitchy hands.

They were Thor's favourite, but he wasn't there to claim them and this way she could at least assure they wouldn't go to waste. Her oven was shit, this kitchen trice the size of her own and she always failed when it came to appropriate quantities. Here she could just leave them without feeling bad about it.

 

There was no other reason to drag her back to the upper floors _whatsoever_.

 

She was doing this since the day Thor had arrived and ruined her friend's composure.

She still remembered the babbling mess Jane had been that night. Fraught with all the nerves and emotions, she seemed to have suppressed for years and Darcy had felt helpless and confused standing next to her. Useless and overwhelmed and Jane hadn't shut up for even a second and Darcy couldn't _just go to bed and ignore everything_ and so had tried to distract her the only way she knew how: Sugar and incessant conversation.

 

It wasn't really all that different now. Even if the only one she had to talk to was herself.

 

Back then the results had been too copious for either of them to handle and it was since known as the great sugar rush of 2011. For days there had been frosting stuck to her cheek and more sugar in her system than it was advisable for any human being and she had been half-willing to swear to never bake again when Jane had hit Thor with her car a second time and weirdness became wonder. They took him in and she learned that Asgardian stomachs knew of no borders as he had finished them all off at record speed and kept asking for more. And Darcy just delivered. It was a fond memory. The satisfied grin on his face had been her cellphone wallpaper for months.

Then it turned into habit and whenever she was faced with sleepless nights there would be a new batch waiting for them in the morning. And sleepless nights were kind of her thing now.

 

She was just about to put the third batch of muffins into the oven when she felt it.

A slight tingle at the back of her spine that almost made her knock over the steaming tray on the counter and she needed a minute to remind herself it was just her paranoia kicking in. _She was in the tower and she was save._ She shook her head and steadied herself, her eyes hastily scanning the room as if there was something she had been missing. As if something, _someone_ was watching her.

 

The spacious kitchen was dark and empty.

 

“Probably just Jarvis.” She mumbled under her breath and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Ignored the voice inside her head that was so keen on reminding her that Jarvis was _always_ watching.

 

She went back to the mixing bowl and started to work on the next round of dough.

 

Just a few moments and the calm would settle again. Just another minute.

 

She bit her lip hard as if the sting could distract her from the pounding insider her head. Rhythmically aching to the beat of her heart.

 

“Shut up, coward.” She told herself and drowned the dough in sugar.

She should have probably gone to bed hours ago. There was no way in hell she would dare to try.

 

Every time exhaustion had won these last couple days the agony had surpassed what she had thought to be the limit and the night before had been the worst so far. The mere memory was more than enough to deny her even the slightest possibility to find rest. She could no longer form the words to describe the onslaught of pain that returned whenever she closed her eyes. Even if anyone cared to listen. Even if she would feel like talking about it.

 

Which she didn't. Neither wanted she to remember. She wanted to stay here, bake for the rest of whatever much of her life was actually left and sent out 'I told you so'-cards to anyone who had ever waged to speak of aspiration. And they would feel remorse for it. Repent for every 'hope' they had thrown her way once the inevitable 'soon' would mark her expiration date and things would turn really bad.

 

Right now felt really bad already.

 

She almost wished for some kind of break-down. A small, familiar fit of hysterics from _anyone_

just so she could slip back into her big girl panties and take care of someone else outside of her work hours. Something to distract her from every time her overtired brain started to drift off.

She regretted the thought the same instant.

 

“Don't be such an asshole..”

 

She wished Jane was awake to explain her progress in elaborate detail until her brain caught fire. She hoped Clint would slip out of the air vents unannounced just to scare the shit out of her. She wanted Peppers disapproving smirk and hide herself in excuses.

 

Instead of that the tingle turned into goosebumps.

A shiver run down her body and she couldn't move an inch. Every cell screamed at her, her fight or flight instincts switched to surrender and she knew with every part of her she wasn't alone. There was someone watching.

 

_Someone was in here._

 

A sharp intake of breath, too distinct for misjudgement and she held hers in silence. The sound of careful footsteps, only accompanied by the low buzz of the oven and the hammering of her own traitorous heartbeat.

 

_This was it._

 

24 years on this godforsaken planet and this was how she was going to die. In the middle of the night, dressed in her Pokémon pyjamas, in a tower full of superheroes and surrounded by baked goods.

 

It was strangely fitting.

 

The steps were getting closer, her demise approaching, she couldn't find her voice to cry for help.

 

She hoped Jane wouldn't be the one to find her body.

 

She felt cold and twitchy and there was sweat building in the base of her neck, her lungs burning from the self-imposed lack of oxygen she couldn't break loose.

 

_'Please let it be quick and painless.'_

 

Then it stopped.

 

The presence still there, still behind her, too far away to touch but close enough to be certain. It took every bit of strength she had to pinch her wrist, just to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She counted to ten inside her head and pinched again.

 

In the corner of her eyes there was a slight movement. Dark and broad and towering. A deja-vu of sorts and suddenly, without cause nor reason she didn't feel quite as terrified anymore. Like the cloak of horror lifted, loosened her cramping muscles and let the air float back into her chest as if it had never been there in the first place.

 

She squinted her eyes shut for a second, tweaked at her skin for good measure and in one rush of ridiculous bravery Darcy turned to her intruder.

 

_Oh._

 

Just like that all tension broke. Her nerves filled up with a different kind of terrror.

 

He seemed as tired as she felt. Deep shadows underneath his eyes, dark tousled hair and an expression that was too confused, too innocent to connect it to the reputation that had been build around him. His hands and brows were raised in a way that was probably supposed to appear non-threatening and there was a glint in his eyes that seemed almost pleading. He cleared his throat as if he needed to prepare himself to talk and unsure of what kind of reaction was expected she just gave in to the relief that overtook her and started to laugh. Open and boisterous and only on the side of hysterical. For a moment she fought she saw twitch of a smile.

 

“They told me you were a dangerous man, Sergeant Barnes, not that you would scare me to death.”

 

The words were spat out between giggles and she needed to steady herself against the counter, her glasses almost slipping down her nose from the shaky motion of her body and she pushed them back up to see him clearly.

 

His mouth was open, arms dropped to his side and his features no longer apologetic. He looked like she had punched him in the gut.

 

“Barnes?”

 

_'Great Darcy, remind the traumatized soldier that people think he's a monster.'_

 

She wanted to hit herself and sew her lips shut. Bury her head in the ground or just for the latter to open up and swallow her whole. This was not the way this was supposed to go, this had not been what she meant at all.

 

“Shit!” She half-yelled and flinched as she noticed him take a step back. There was something akin to recognition ghosting over his face. “I didn't mean it like that. It was just.. a stupid joke.. I just mean.. Tony said something like 'be careful around trained assassins' and all that, because I'm like.. a useless civilian.. but no one listens to Tony, he's full of shit. I'm not scared of you or...”

 

She rambled. She was painfully aware of how much of a fool she made of herself in front of her childhood fantasy. The one she just insulted. Her tongue felt dry and heavy and it took a lot not to flee the room until the awkwardness was gone.

 

_'A+ for people skills, Darcy.'_

 

“Here!” She grabbed a muffin and shoved it into his direction as if it was able to solve everything.

 

_' “She meant well”, shall be written on your headstone.'_

 

He just stared at her. Uncertainty deeply etched into his features. His glance flickering between the pastry in her hand and her probably pathetically desperate expression.

Darcy stared back.

 

“You don't like sweets?” She tried and almost let out a sigh of relief when he slowly shook his head.

 

“Then.. you think I'm trying to poison you?” Already too engulfed in her own stupidity to back down now, she took a nip out of the muffin and chewed thoroughly before she made sure he could see her swallow. She held it back out for him. The anticipation was nauseating.

 

“See, only danger is the possible cavity.”

 

At this he finally snorted, immediately regaining his composure as if the sound should be forbidden and she beamed up at him, a sense of prospect shading her embarrassment that made her feel so much lighter than she had in days.

 

He shook his head again, a fragile hint of a grin flashing up for a brief moment and slowly reached out for her peace offering.

 

From up close, he looked different.

He towered over her in a way that was quite more definite than she had expected and neither his cautious sight nor his massive build were anywhere close to what she had imagined when she was younger. A pleasant heat, that shouldn't surprise her, radiated off of his skin as he took the muffin out of her hand, avoiding any actual contact with such practice it seemed deliberate. It almost hurt as she held herself back from following his movement as he withdrew again.

 

Full of expectation she waited for him to carry on.

 

_'no unsupervised contact'_

 

Tony's insistence rung shrilling in her ear and she tried to shrug it off. Barnes' eyes firmly trained on her face, he dug in.

 

She felt so much more nervous than she ever had before. Suddenly painfully aware of the smudged traces of yesterday's make-up and her unwashed hair and all the flour that still stuck to her cheeks. She had to bury her hands in her pyjama shorts to not succumb to the pathetic desire to sort out her appearance in front of him as if it wasn't a useless endeavour. Vanity should be of no concern right now. He didn't need to know how self-conscious she felt.

 

He wolfed down the rest of his muffin in large bites and gestured to the heap next to her with a mischievous glint that made her knees weak. She shifted the baking tray closer to his awaiting hands and watched him devour another two before she found the courage to speak again.

 

“Super-soldier appetite or approval?”

 

He smiled around a mouthful of pastry and nodded in a way that was probably supposed to mean 'both'. She was kinda getting the hang of this non-verbal communication that appeared to be his mother tongue.

 

“Eat as much as you like.”

 

She wanted to ask if he was finally finished with whatever Tony had been doing to his brain or why he was standing in the communal kitchen in the middle of the night, or what he thought about anything that was happening now that he was no longer Hydra's prisoner or how much of his life he still remembered but for once it was reason that stopped her. It felt too intrusive and a little hypocritical and so she pushed her curiosity as far back as she could and tried a smile of her own.

 

“You never have to ask,” She said and pointed at the now half-empty tray in front of him. “You're Steve's best friend, he's like my brother and that kind of makes you family.”

 

She wanted him to feel welcome, to prove to him that it wasn't just fear people associated with his name and show him that maybe, if he wanted, she could be his friend too.

 

Apparently it wasn't what he wanted to hear. A melancholic crack cut into the almost relaxed smile he had sported just a second ago and he just dipped his head in what seemed to be half-hearted politeness. As if there would be too much to all of it to even try to articulate everything she'd gotten wrong and there was the hint of a woefulness, subtle but jabbing and she felt once again like a complete idiot.

 

He stuffed his face with muffin and didn't answer.

 

“Urgh, I'm doing it again, am I? I'm so bad at this. I shouldn't refer to things you don't properly remember.. sorry. I shouldn't say that either, right? Holy Thor, I was born with my foot in my mouth. I'm sorry.. I... do you think this is funny?”

 

This time he didn't try to hide his chuckles. His cheeks still completely filled with pastry, the sound was muffled and choked and it would probably be a bit disgusting if she wasn't so amazed by the obvious amusement in his expression. And slightly offended.

 

“I'm trying to be warm and sensitive here!”

 

Her mouth set into a pout she grabbed a muffin of her own, her outrage mostly fake and his snickering grew louder.

 

“I'm so glad my embarrassment is a joke to you.” She deadpanned and he winked at her in a way that seemed so casual it was startling.

 

_The fucking audacity._

 

His laugh was low, distracting and did things to her stomach she had no patience for.

Too reminiscent of all her teenage nights she ought to have outgrown years ago and somehow didn't. The pathetic taste of her realisation mixed with the sugar on her tongue and she didn't know what else to say.

 

Again they just looked at each other and part of her thought this was supposed to feel awkward and uncomfortable. But his eyes were warm and only a tad hesitant and she wanted to press her palms to his chest so she could feel him breathing and it didn't scare her in all the ways it should.

She swallowed the urge. Her hands firmly grasped around her muffin and the muscle beneath her ribcage working in overdrive. She hoped to Asgard and back that he wasn't able to hear it.

 

_'he thinks you're a total nutjob..'_

 

The annoying beep of the oven was a welcome interruption to her train of thought. In not completely feigned abandon she turned to the wicket, almost ripped it open as if it was of utmost urgency and reached inside before her brain was even remotely able to process her actions.

Before she could make contact her movement came to an abrupt halt.

Barnes' hand wrapped around her biceps, hindering any possible motion and for a moment she was simply captivated by the contrast of the silver against her skin. The metallic plates humming lowly with every twitch and so much warmer than she had expected and she had to force herself not to trace them with her fingertips. Barnes just looked at her, a shimmer of worry flickering over his face. Then comprehension hit hard.

 

“Shit, man..” She took a step back, his grip still firmly in place and glanced at the steaming goods that had almost resulted in a second degree burn. Gratitude filled her so intensely she felt a bit like crying.

 

“You just totally saved my ass..”

 

She shook her head a couple of times, embarrassment once again in full bloom and didn't even try to fight the blush she felt creeping up her cheeks.

 

“Thank you.”

 

He nodded at her, again not rewarding her with an actual reply and pushed her carefully back so he could reach into the oven himself. His left hand removed the baking tray with ease, neither the weight nor the heat stinting the smoothness of his movement in the slightest and she just watched him in silence. Dumbfounded and ashamed by her own foolishness. Kind of in awe at the sight of his cybernetic appendage.

 

Darcy wanted to touch it. Suddenly she understood the rapture in Tony's expression at the thought of examining it even though her own technical prowess ended at fixing cars and mid-level hacking. The mere vision was magnificent.

 

“Can I see it?” Her stupid mouth spat out before she could stop herself and already took a step into his direction. He eyed her up as if she lost her mind.

Maybe she did.

 

“Your arm, I mean.” She clarified and reached out as if it was the most reasonable request one could think of.

 

“I read a lot about it and Tony totally has the hots for it but to see it right in front of me.. you know I didn't even properly realise until just now.”

 

Barnes looked so conflicted, she almost wanted to take it back. But before she could apologise and accept the rejection, he slowly crossed the distance and lowered his arm into her awaiting hands. Doubt heavy in his features.

 

For a while she just waited for him to relax.

 

“Do you feel that?” She asked and tentatively moved her fingertips over his wrist. A light touch only, as if he was fragile and tender and she would break him if she dared to use too much pressure. She lowly chuckled at the thought and gently run her palm up to his shoulder, the moment almost too intimate for her exhausted brain to apprehend.

 

Barnes nodded. His eyes concentrated on her face, as if he was only waiting for the first traces of fear to arise.

 

There was no fear whatsoever. The metallic surface was just the slightest bit cooler than her skin, smooth to the touch and she was half-way tempted to lift it to her cheek just to see what it would feel like. Of course she didn't. Of course she was aware that technically speaking this was a weapon. A weapon and the arm of a man she hardly knew and her behaviour entirely inappropriate. Even if it didn't feel that way. No matter how much time she spent fondling it like a shiny new toy and for a second she felt almost bad for her lack of reservation.

But this time he didn't frown at her. Hesitation, worry, expectancy all danced around his features but he didn't seem appalled by her actions. He didn't look like he wanted to get up and run.

He held completely still, not a twitch to his intimidating stature as if he wanted to make sure not to startle her.

She smiled at him in return.

 

“It can withstand extreme temperatures and is even stronger than the rest of your enhanced self, right?”

 

Again he nodded. She was not quite ready to let go.

 

“And you can operate it just like your non-bionic arm..yes?”

 

Another confirmation.

 

“This is so freaking cool..” She mumbled, this time mostly to herself and reluctantly pulled herself away. The intensity of his stare made her palms sweaty and his ongoing silence felt like just another indicator that she had probably already overstayed the welcome.

 

She felt nervous and obtrusive and just wanted to force it down _somehow_.

 

“We totally have to hang out some time and then you'll have to show me how you crush things with it.”

 

He grimaced at that and for once she didn't push the topic, his shoulders suddenly a lot more tense than they had been a couple minutes ago.

 

_'Stupid, stupid Darcy.'_

 

He didn't fidget or made any clear indication to leave and maybe it was her paranoia but she could see in his expression that he had now reached the point of overload. As if the social interaction she had almost forced upon him now took its strain and it were only his 1940's manners that detained him from fleeing the room. The tension in his eyes was prominent and bitter and she felt a biting guilt settling inside of her.

 

“I'm sorry.” She said for what must be the hundredth time this night and the way his gaze snapped to her face like a caught child stung more than it should. He was vulnerable and overwhelmed and she felt like a fucking bulldozer.

 

“I'm super sleep-deprived and pushy right now, please just ignore everything I say..”

 

He frowned at that, his lips pressed into a straight line and she wasn't entirely sure if she imagined the slight tremor in his hands that were suddenly a lot closer than she remembered.

He awkwardly squeezed her shoulder, the pressure so faint as if he wasn't sure he should be touching her in the first place and he shook his head with a determination that would make her laugh if it was anyone else. If she didn't still feel like an utter moron that should be held back from society. If she wasn't so touched by the fact that he actually tried to comfort her.

 

_'This is just so fucking ridiculous'_

 

She took a deep breath and gave him the most cheerful smile she could muster.

 

“I'm gonna try to catch some sleep now. I'll leave you with the muffins.. if you want, like I said, take as many as you like. I promise I'll try to be less weird next time..”

 

She didn't wait for an answer. Just gathered her nerves and pushed out of the kitchen, leaving the mess of pastries and flour and Barnes behind before she could ruin every chance to ever become his friend for good. Even if it meant staring at her ceiling for the rest of the night. It was a damn nice ceiling at least.

 

She didn't dare to look back until her bedroom door was firmly closed behind her. Her heart was still beating loud and heavy against her chest and it wasn't until she was tightly wrapped in her covers that she realised that for the first time in days it wasn't because of her impending doom. Not because the fear of death and torture had snuck up once again around her throat but for the mere fact of her embarrassment. The thought was strangely comforting.

 

It wasn't enough of a distraction to claim she had found peace with it. It wasn't enough to make the terror seem secondary. But for now it was something. For now it helped to allow herself to let her eyes fall shut when the exhaustion dragged strongly on her consciousness. If only so she wouldn't have to replay the encounter over and over again. Just to shut up her mortification once and for all.

 

Hours later, when she finally fell into slumber the pain was absent. The world was silent.

 

The only thing she could see was her face.

 

 

*

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.. wow.. this is still so insane, I can't believe how many people actually read this. I repeat myself constantly but I never ever expected this and I'm getting emotional whenever my phone pings and there's a new comment or kudo-email in my notifications. I think I replied to most of you but since I have two jobs, hardly any free time atm and mostly get to check my phone inbetween bathroom breaks (err) I might accidentally skipped someone? If I have, I am sorry - You are so appreciated, please don't think I don't care. Once the retail nightmare that is christmas is over and i actually have weekends again it'll be a little easier.  
> So this is two days early because I felt like it. And there's a bit more Bucky. And emotions. And some answers. And weirdness. And the freaking scene that popped into my head as a cute one-shot idea and started this whole monstrosity in the first place. I am so anxious what you'll think about it!  
> Also: TRIGGER WARNING! There is a short moment involving a panic attack somewhere in this.  
> So thank you again, if I was rich you'd all get life-time-supplies of chocolate.  
> I hope you enjoy chapter three.

 

_"We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming."_

― _Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_

 

 

She felt surprisingly human when she woke up the next morning. Relaxed, almost peppy and only slightly confused. The memory of her embarrassment just a tired groan in the back of her mind. Her covers toasty and comfortable and the muscled chest she rested her head on warm and cushy.

_'Wait a minute..'_

“How the fuck did you even get into my room?”

All at once wide-awake she grabbed the closest pillow she could reach and pushed it relentlessly into Steve's gaping face. Clearly caught off-guard he tensed, the muffled yell he let out sounded suspiciously like 'Clint' and 'air vents' and she decidedly kept her grip firm for another minute until he started to wriggle around a lot more urgently than was reasonable. Probably.

“Thank you, I was always curious what it must feel like to be smothered.” He deadpanned when she finally lifted the pillow from his head and she was only slightly tempted to lower her hands again.

“Give me one good reason as to why you think it's necessary to give me a heart-attack at the ass-crack of dawn and I won't see it finished.”

Darcy Lewis was not exactly what one would call a morning person.

“This is an intervention.”

Steve very much didn't care.

“Did I just give you brain-damage?”

He huffed in annoyance as she sluggishly pushed herself into a sitting position, her back rested against the headboard and her arms folded across her chest.

“You are sure you know what the word means, right? Maybe the definition has changed in the last 70 years.”

Steve let out a frustrated sigh and threw her his best 'Captain America is disappointed in you'-face, she was fairly certain would get her thrown into jail in at least 30 states alone. It took all her willpower to remain uneffected.

“I know that you were with Bucky last night.” He said, his voice dripping with disapproval and it was not what she had expected. With a loud groan she threw her arms over her eyes.

“Could make it sound a little more insinuating? Nothing happened, dude!”

There was too much accusation in the room for such an early hour.

“Of course nothing happened. If anything would have happened you would be dead now. Thank god, that's not the point.”

That freaking pout would be the death of her.

“Why did he even tell you? It was totally harmless.”

“He didn't tell me. Or he didn't plan to. I checked in with Jarvis when I noticed he had left the room in the middle of the night just to find out the two of you spent an hour in the communal kitchen together. _An hour._ After I told you to keep your distance _until he's more stable_.”

It had felt a lot shorter than that. For once she kept her mouth shut and just glared at his collarbone.

“You don't even want to know how angry Tony is right now.. I had to wrestle him back into the labs or you would have been on indefinite lock down. Dammit Darcy, do you have a death wish?”

And now he was just dropping bricks. She swallowed and didn't look him in the eye.

“Really depends on the time of day..”

She was kind of pissed and trice as sullen.

“I assume you confronted him, too? What did he say?”

Another long drawn sigh followed and she resolutely ignored the warm arm that tried to wrap around her shoulder.

“Not much. He didn't really want to talk about it. He admitted he couldn't sleep and followed his nose when he smelled someone was baking. He kind of has a sweet tooth.”

“I gathered.” She wanted to sound unimpressed. She wanted Steve to keep talking.

“He said he found you in the kitchen and that you didn't seem afraid of him. Said you were interested in his arm and then you went to bed.”

“That arm is so cool..” She mumbled under her breath. Steve's reproachful eyes burned holes into the side of her face and she quickly shut her mouth again.

“He said he liked your muffins.”

He also had a way with words. Not for the first time she was incredibly glad he sometimes was too much _Steve Rogers_ to understand his own implications. The blush on her face was clearly imaginary.

“Good.”

The knowledge that Barnes apparently didn't find her as weird and embarrassing as she anticipated calmed her nerves a lot. Maybe she even snuggled a little into Steve's embrace. She would deny it at court. He was still on probation.

“So.. at least thank you for that. You were nice to him and.. I think in a way it's good for him to know not everyone who's aware of his background believes he's gonna murder them in cold blood. Doesn't change the fact that he could.. not Bucky.. but.. if he was triggered, Darcy. There's so much more to this.”

She slowly reached her wits end. There was still too much unspoken and she ripped herself away from him, once again threw the pillow at his face and just stomped on the floor in a boast of frustration she couldn't really shake off.

“Then for once stop tiptoeing and finally tell me everything you so clearly keep avoiding! You gave me the fucking file – so apparently I am allowed to know _some_ things. What are those details you keep hiding from me and why?”

She was sick and tired of being kept in the dark. She was furious at everyone around her making decisions for her, she didn't even understand thoroughly enough to choose for herself. Terrified of the adumbrations of information that were everything they seemed to offer her. As if she wasn't enough to handle the truth. As if she was a freaking child they needed to shelter.

“Because I'm scared I mess it up. I'm afraid that if I tell you too much, you'll be too scared to ever give him a chance once he's himself again and that.. “

He hesitated for a second and Darcy felt an anger inside her veins, that was too all-encompassing to ever put into words. _'Once he's himself again'_ she repeated inside her head and just stared at Steve's pained expression,

“You say that as if he wasn't a person right now.”

“The Soldier's still inside of him, Darcy.” He continued and for a moment she wasn't entirely certain what he was trying to say. “Bucky Barnes is one of the best people I ever met, but the Soldier isn't gone. He killed in the name of Hydra for 70 years, it's not like we can pretend that didn't happen. They turned him into something so horrible we couldn't simply rip it out. It's not just that they forced him to do their dirty work, they created something out of him that is no longer human. The difference between Tony and I is.. that he's not sure there is truly anything of Bucky left and I know it is. I see him, _I know him_ , parts of him are still there, his memory's slowly coming back but.. that doesn't change the fact that the Winter Soldier is still waiting behind all of it. We tried pushing him out.. that's all we did these last couple days.. but it's like he's only sleeping in the back of his mind. Hydra programmed some kind of trigger-words into his brain.. it's.. I'm not sure how exactly it works but it's like an on-switch for the Soldier.. and we somehow managed to _loosen_ the association? ..like Tony said something about a proxy.. something like he could now _choose_ to activate if he was faced with the words, instead of just flipping the switch.. but we don't know how well it truly worked. If it worked at all. We don't know what else could trigger the Soldier.. if it's .. specific situations or any kind of intense emotion. And that's just the part that's about the Winter Soldier.. there's still his traumata. He was a prisoner for more than twice as long as he was just Bucky.. you can't simply shake something like that. Everyone with his condition would be a danger under normal circumstances.. even without the possibility of a merciless, fully-fledged master-assassin on super-soldier-serum that could emerge any moment.”

There was a hurt in Steve's voice that resounded through every part of her. There was compassion and fury and a lump inside her throat that made her just as speechless as the infinite fear she had become so accustomed to. But right now she wasn't afraid. Not of Barnes. Not of the Soldier. Every single paranoid, heartbroken cell of her body told her that no matter the countless warnings Steve would utter, she had nothing to worry about. A solid sense of trust she couldn't rationalize. At least that thought should scare her.

Apparently her sanity had been ripped to shreds.

“So you mean it's like he's two people at once?”

Every word that left his lips seemed to be carefully selected.

“In a way. And not. It's like there are two people inside of him, the fact that right now he can't be both at once is what makes it so dangerous. When the Soldier wakes, Bucky's gone. If Bucky's gone there's no one to stop him.”

It felt like he was looking for something in her eyes. There was so much sadness in his that she wanted to give it to him, regardless of what it was. All her instincts were on high-alert.

“No one.. but you?”

His answer was something that scared her. An unspoken implication she never even wanted to imagine.

“If I am present. Probably. Or maybe not and whoever gets in the middle could still end up as collateral damage. And you can't be that, Darcy. It would set him back months if he killed an innocent now.. and if he killed you, Darce.. I don't even want to think about it. It's the only damn thing I ask of you – please just keep your distance for now.”

She simply nodded. There was nothing to argue anymore, no matter how bad she wished she could. Even if every part of her kept on screaming that he was wrong about this, there was no certainty in any of it. Nothing that she could promise to ease his fear. Just the acceptance of another 'someday' she might not have enough time for left.

She swallowed and tried a cheerful smile. It felt like a grimace.

“So you are now trying to connect the two? So he can control it himself?”

It sounded so much more simple than it could ever be and she wanted for him to grin and nod and to tell her that it would all be done and dealt with in no time.

“That's part of why he's in therapy now.” He said instead. “Sam thinks he's separated the two himself, when he started to regain his memories, so it was easier to deal with the remorse. We just hope that the more he remembers about who he was, the more secure he becomes in who he is and so the easier it'll be to accept what they did to him... turned him into.. to.. combine those aspects instead of keeping them isolated and therefore taking charge of those parts. So yeah.. that's the final goal, but.. he killed for more than half a century, when is a person ready to face that kind of guilt?”

She felt her heart breaking for him. Again and again and the unjustice of it all burnt hot against her vocal cords. She wanted to just shake her head and scream and cry. The need to seek him out almost physical. Like she could drown the torture, the sorrow, every dark twisted memory he still carried around with him _somehow._ She blinked away that wettness that started to built and tried to stand still.

“But it wasn't him who killed those people. They used him!”

It was everything she believed to be true and still sounded too weak to make a difference.

“I know that, but that doesn't mean he feels that way. It doesn't mean he won't have the memories of everything they made him do right there with him. I agree with you a hundred percent, but I know him. He's still gonna blame himself for every single person that lost their life by his hands. And that's only the biggest problem if whatever Tony did actually worked. And even then.. there's still the imprisonment.. the war.. the fact that he fucking died in 1945. I highly doubt they ever gave him the chance to come to terms with that.. I know I didn't. ”

Now there were fresh tears on her face and for once she wasn't ashamed of them. Steve reached out for her hand, his own cheeks damp and flushed and this time they belonged. He just stared at their interlaced fingers for a couple of minutes and she tried to catch her breath.

He sounded not the least bit more collected when he continued to talk.

“We'll do the best we can. He's getting better every day but I have no idea how long it takes until we're there.. what we need now is patience and safety. For everyone else just as much as for him.”

The plea in his look devoured everything she still wanted to say. Stifled every selfish urge to be _right there, every step of the way_ she shouldn't experience and again she nodded at him. The unspoken promise honest and prominent in the onerous atmosphere.

She squeezed his hands in encouragement and watched him let out a deep sigh.

“I swear I'm not gonna risk his progress or my safety again.” She finally said. For good measure, Steve's relief and partly because she knew he was right. No matter what the sweltering feeling in her stomach kept on telling her.

“Strict supervision until you give me the go ahead.”

He pressed his wet mouth against the back of her hand and smiled at her in a way she could almost believe. As if he actually knew what this meant to her. As if there was sense in her emotional investment that seemed inappropriate at best.

“Thank you.” He said and her heart felt so much heavier than it should.

If only she knew that her word would be redundant.

 

*

 

As it turned out it wasn't as hard to stay away as she had expected. Not even remotely. In fact it didn't take any energy at all.

Because it was Barnes who suddenly avoided her like the plague.

Somehow.

Or maybe he wanted her to believe he was avoiding her for whatever childish reason she really didn't need to dwell on. Or maybe she imagined how he left the room, the minute she entered or the way she felt like someone was watching her, whenever she occupied the communal kitchen in the middle of the night just to find nothing once she turned around.

Half of whatever goods she prepared would always be gone the next morning and Clint started to complain she was underestimating their appetite.

She was half-way certain it didn't just happen inside her head.

She didn't ask questions about his progress. Partly because she knew it wasn't really any of her business and mostly because it felt a little easier to concentrate on anything else. Easier to ignore the sinking feeling that hit her every time it was only a glimpse of his back or the glint of silver or the low sound of his voice when he made another hasty apology to whoever he had been talking to before she had made herself known.

It was uncomfortable and weird and she tried not to start second-guessing because she wasn't sure she would ever be able to stop.

She still got some kind of insight though, even if it was mainly due to the attentiveness her mother had half-heartedly criticised all these years ago. In the way she could tell if it had been a good day from Steve's laugh or the tenseness of his shoulders or how she connect the dots his crestfallen gloom left for her to figure out.

Sometimes there was no glimpse of Barnes for days. Just the frown on Steve's face and the hushed conversations they all knew she was trying to listen in and more often then not she found herself re-reading whatever kind of thesis she'd been checking on until the words started to blur in front of her eyes.

All in all Darcy felt pathetic. For the most part she just wished she had a choice in any of it.

When she finally broke her silence one evening it was only because of the particularly devastated look Steve could have tried a lot harder to hide.

“You okay?” She asked and he didn't look up.

It was simple enough to start with. It was late enough for most of them to be gone to their apartments and she would too if Steve hadn't hogged the six-pack of beer she had already made elaborate plans for.

For a while he just stared at nothing. For a moment she wasn't sure if had heard her in the first place.

“Did Barnes have a bad day or something?”

She shouldn't have said that. She should have taken Tony's Bourbon instead and just left to her own quarters before he started telling her things she was in no way ready to listen to. Not if she wanted to think of anything else for the rest of the night. Not if she planned to refrain from her stress-bake-routine at least one more time.

It had been doomed from the beginning.

“Not exactly.” He said and there was a novel written between each and every letter that left his lips but he just kept his eyes concentrated on the wall behind her and didn't seem like he intended to continue.

Instead of keeping her mouth shut she slumped down next to him and made a grabby motion to the bottle in his hands.

“Please don't overwhelm me with the details, buddy, let someone else talk for a change.”

He didn't smile or even look at her but he passed her the beer and she took a couple of tiny sips while she tried not to seem as desperate for information as she felt.

“Today was actually pretty remarkable.” He said and finally glanced at her. “He already remembers so much. It's incredible.”

She waited for a few seconds and switched to large gulps. Somehow she felt she shouldn't be entirely sober for this.

Or she shouldn't be entirely sober, period. She knew there was at least one genius who approved.

“Then why do you look like you caught him fucking your dog?”

He shook his head and there was almost the hint of a smirk on his face but it didn't quite reach his eyes. She squeezed his shoulder and waited once more.

“You're impossible..” He finally whispered and when he started to talk again it felt like he didn't know how to stop. Like everything he had bottled up for what might be half of forever just spilled out of his mouth with every breath he took and Darcy just listened. Too drunk on the raw emotion in his voice to even remember the alcohol she had hoped would ease her into sleep and she held on to his hand as he rambled on and on about everything her history books had only grazed. Everything he had thought lost and buried and that was now once again within reach. Of the fear and the uncertainty and all the sorrow that overflowed him after everything that had happened.

“Do you know that they told him that he killed his mate?” He asked after what felt like at least an hour and se just shook her head because it wasn't an answer that Steve needed. The words still felt like a punch to the face.

“They wiped him again and again and they told him he killed her because his mark was grey for so long. Whenever he started to ask questions. Whenever a little part of him started to become more than just their asset. And then they wiped him again so he wouldn't start caring. And they put him into cyro. They froze him alive and mauled his brain and if it wasn't for the serum.. gosh Darce, there would be nothing left.. they kept him awake for years now.. just wiped whenever he started to re-emerge again and what they made him do.. he slaughtered children, Darcy.. just because of what their parents meant to Hydra.. he's.. this is all my fault... Darcy.. if I had kept looking.. if I went back just once more.. if I had followed the traces.. he would..”

“Then he would be dead now.” She didn't mean to sound as harsh as she did. “He would have fallen to the war or in the best case he would have been sent home as an amputee and would have had to watch you die instead. Or he would have simply succumbed to his injuries.. whatever Hydra did to keep him alive after what happened in the Alps.. who knows if you could have done the same.”

He was silent for a moment but she could sense his protest before he as much as opened his mouth.

“But then he wouldn't have.. then he wouldn't have to fight through this now.. he wouldn't have been made into something that...”

There was enough regret in his tone to choke up her own airways and she couldn't stand the look on his face any longer. Angry and desperate and half-ashamed she reached for everything that just remotely sounded like reason. Anything to rid him of the overbearing sadness that made her feel so small and useless, she felt like ripping something apart just to prove it wrong.

“But now he still has a chance! I feel you.. believe me, man, I had that exact thought and I still feel like shit because of it. But if it wasn't Barnes it would have been someone else. There would still have been a Winter Soldier, those people would have still been killed. At least.. gosh.. I know this sound horrible.. but at least this way he now has the chance to live his life. I'm not saying they had to die so he could live.. I mean, Hydra would have killed them anyways.. and because they made Barnes the Soldier he's still here today. If there's nothing out of this that means a damn thing.. at least there's that.”

She felt almost ashamed for speaking out loud. For making it sound like all the cruelty, all the pain and death that had filled his life had been worth it. Had been worth something she had no business asking about. And she still couldn't shake the slight tinge of relief that kept sitting at the back of her head and reminded her of everything she shouldn't hope for. Didn't hope for. Just relished at every thought she dared to entertain, just related to the desperation in Steve's eyes.

It was the kind of thing she shouldn't have said to anyone's face.

For once she thanked whoever was listening that Barnes wasn't here to witness. Even if he was not even an acquaintance, a perfect stranger almost, she was utterly certain he wouldn't agree. In a way she knew that mostly even Steve didn't. Not rationally, not in manners he could explain.

But she knew her friend and she knew love when she saw it.

Because to Steve, Barnes would always be family. Damn his moral code to hell and back.

“What happened will never be okay. But crying about it won't change a damn thing. Make the best out of the chance you got now.”

Steve nodded and kept staring at the wall.

“It's not that he's worth the innocent lives that got lost because of everything Hydra did. It's.. in a way.. in all of this, he himself is an innocent. Hydra took his life too.”

Maybe that was the only truth the both of them could accept. With every part of her she hoped Barnes would as well.

“And now we took it back.” Steve said.

Neither of them knew where to go from there.

 

*

 

If the fact that she was much too aware how Barnes went out of his way to make sure he wasn't in the same room as her for more than 10 seconds didn't do any good for her sleeping patterns, the sudden lack of the pain lately certainly did. From one day to the next it was gone, replaced by the ever-returning image of her face instead and even though that didn't settle the fear in her stomach, the reality of three master-assassins, the best security Stark's brain could come up with, the heroic national icon who out-henned her own mother and the return of the god that had become family, all in the same place she lived in didn't exactly hurt.

Since her encounter with Barnes, Tony had been furious and after everything Steve had told her it shouldn't even surprise her. There had been an elaborate lecture that consisted mostly of expletives and multiple variations of the word 'disappointment' and in the aftermath he had refused to talk to her for days. She hadn't dared to step foot into his office, avoided his lab for at least a week and when he had finally stopped the silence treatment and ceased to throw her death glares whenever they crossed paths, he had made sure Jarvis monitored her whereabouts at any given moment. It was almost a miracle she could still leave the building. Even her own father would have let her down easier. But she knew Tony and although she wasn't exactly comfortable, she somehow understood. It was his way to make sure she was protected. The warped sound of the "i care about you" he would never put into words.

Still she wouldn't go as far as to say she felt save. Even if it wasn't for her words. She had seen and lived through enough to know casualties happened – especially in their line of work, and her words certainly still were. Dark and prominent and she could push them out for hours, but not on her own.

And that might be precisely her misery.

In a way she had felt lonely for most of her life. Unable to relish in what they had all deemed indubitably right Darcy had always been the odd one out. Struggling to connect. The one along for ride but never behind the steering wheel and if it wasn't for everything that should have turned everyone of sound mind completely mad, she wasn't sure there would be anything she could have ever related to. But there had been Jane, who was the first who listened because she wanted to instead of the sense duty that accompanied every smile her mother had thrown her way. There had been people she should have had nothing in common with but somehow did and she had built a family entirely of her own, she had never thought possible.

Maybe there hadn't been much of her sanity to begin with. Maybe this was her compensation.

But now was different. Always surrounded by people and Jarvis' constant surveillance she felt more isolated than she had ever before and this time there was something about it that made it so much harder to pretend she didn't notice.

She couldn't exactly pinpoint what started it. If it was Steve's departure or his return, Tony's newest obsession with certain appendages she should spend a lot less time fantasising about or the fact that Thor's Asgardian business seemed to be dealt with for the moment and therefore all of her Jane-time was hogged by his presence. If it was her own fault for keeping her damn mouth shut about everything that haunted her nights once again.

If it was fate's way of telling her something else she was in no way ready to listen to.

There was a solitude so pronounced and overwhelming she didn't even remember how to open up and ask for help. A longing for something she couldn't put into words.

It was probably part of the reason she actually considered replying to the newest text-message Ian had sent, even though she hadn't bothered to answer him for months now. Ian, her spur-of-the-moment mistake who so clearly didn't understand that ' _not interested, dude_ ' was not meant to be a challenge. Who was apparently somewhere in New York this very moment and quite desperate to meet her.

For a while she wondered if she was desperate enough to agree. Now, when she so clearly felt how every new morning only brought her closer. The anticipation and fear so tangible she could almost taste it on her tongue and she pondered if this was the chance for one last screw before she had to close her eyes for good and Ian was simply the best option she could hope for.

With a frown and all the pride she could muster she hit 'delete' and left the lab that for once wasn't filled with the never-resting tenacity that was Jane Foster and made her way to the upper quarters to look for _anyone_ that would help her get her mind off of her own frustration. Or was at least willing to listen to her complain.

Anything to kill time before it reciprocated.

 

“HOW THE FUCK MAN?”

 

She heard Clint long before she saw him. He was probably sitting in front of the huge television in the communal living-room, yelling obscenities at the screen and she would be worried if it wasn't for the low chuckle that sounded distinctly like Sam that accompanied his outrage. The rackety thud of gun-shots from the speakers were muffled by their noise and a sense of relief filled her chest.

“Clint, as alpha-idiot of your species – please explain to me the stupidity of your gender.” She started, the Ian-excuse already twisted into a version she could state without offering too much detail. She rounded the corner, her best no-nonsense-expression already firmly in place and she would have gladly continued her well-prepared rant if it wasn't for the sharp intake of breath that came from neither of the Avengers she had expected.

Next to Clint, half-reclined between the cushions of the couch, a controller in his hands and his face a lot paler than she remembered sat the man who had avoided her for weeks now.

Her facility was gone as fast as it appeared.

“Or you simply start explaining what's your tantrum all about..”

Barnes shoulders tensed at the sound of her voice. His eyes strictly glued to the screen as if anyone would believe him he hadn't noticed her. And for a second it stung.

She tried to force it down. Life was bad enough as it was. She was having none of it today.

She didn't understand why she couldn't stop bothering, why it felt like a refusal to everything she hadn't even have the time to offer and why he..

Clint's whine didn't allow the time to finish the thought.

“Darce, tell the senior citizen that he has no right to best me in things that aren't meant for his generation!”

Sam sat on the love-seat in the corner of the room, an open book in his lap as he scanned the room. Visibly torn between his attempts to continue reading and laughing his ass off and she would have chosen his company over the ridiculous feigned disinterest of one James Buchanan Barnes if it wasn't for the pushy outrage of her friend, who so clearly demanded her attention.

“This is **my** game!” Clint said, wiggling his controller as if to prove a point and repeatedly elbowed Barnes' shoulder between every syllable. Barnes seemed mostly unaffected, partly amused. The emotionless mask on his face slowly waned and a slight smirk crept up the corner of his mouth as he softly pushed the man away from him. There was an ease in his expression he always lacked when he turned her way.

She couldn't pretend that didn't hurt either.

“You keep forgetting that I was a sniper long before you even knew what a damn target was.” He deadpanned and pushed another button that made Clint groan in annoyance, still pointedly ignoring her presence.

“I am Hawkeye!” He half-yelled with a gesture that looked a lot like he considered throwing his controller through the room. It was ridiculous enough to divert her a little from the rejection she felt.

“This is Call of Duty. This is a fucking video game. You're not supposed to be good at it! You're supposed to fail and be amazed by the future.”

Clint stared at Barnes with so much revolt Darcy couldn't hold in the chuckle that so desperately wanted to leave her lips and his eyes snapped to her face as if she had just started screaming. She tried very hard not to feel intimidated. To hold on to all the calmness she could find.

No one should have that kind of power over her.

The track-record of her spontaneity was mostly tragic but out of options, her façade straining under the implication of his impassiveness she popped her knuckles in mock-preperation and threw him the most confident wink she could manage. He just stared at her.

“Move over and let the master teach you a thing or two.” She proclaimed a lot more aggressively than she felt and didn't allow herself to falter. Didn't react to the doubtful look in his eyes or the way he raised his brow as if he wasn't sure if she was kidding or not.

She petted Clint's head as she squeezed between the two of them and reached for the controller he offered her with a crestfallen expression on his face.

“Avenge me..” He whispered pleadingly and she nodded at her friend, all her energy focused on keeping her composure instead of the man beside her. Barnes still didn't stop staring as she settled into a more comfortable position. Her knee slightly overlapping with his thigh and she returned the look in equal measure, prompting him to restart the game.

He winced slightly but didn't move away.

It had to count for something.

“So are we doing this or what, Sarge? Scared I'm gonna kick your ass in front of the Bird-Boys?”

He snorted but his eyes flickered to the two men that witnessed their exchange with a mixture of amusement and expectancy and she didn't dare to pay attention to the lump that started to build in her throat. There was a hint of worry in his expression. She didn't let herself shiver under the weight of it.

“Oh come on!” She softly slapped his knee and shook her head in mild annoyance that was almost genuine. “Is it because of the civilian thing? You're not gonna accidentally kill me in front of two muscle-men playing a damn video game. This is like super-supervised, totally following all the rules!”

She wasn't even sure if it had anything to do with his reluctance. If maybe he simply couldn't stand the sight of her. For now it was what she needed to believe.

For a moment there was silence. Only filled with the slight buzz of the pause screen coming from the speakers and she was almost ready to admit defeat and return to the labs when he finally let out a deep sigh and looked at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes that hadn't been there before.

_'Got you!'_ The relief was instantaneous and she threw him a wide grin and re-positioned herself. Determination rising up as if she was going to war. His low chuckle almost melodic in her ears.

“You'll see, I was born to do this!”

He flashed her a smile and pressed play and the fear finally settled.

Reliance took over, her grip was solid and secure. This was her element. This time she knew what to do.

He was a lot better than she expected.

“Oh no! You little...”

Her character slid out of his reach not a second too early and she was almost impressed how close he got to snuffing her mere moments after they started the game; If she didn't know with crystal clarity that she could do so much better. There was still something fundamentally wrong about it and he laughed at her outrage and kept on attacking as if he was playing for years. She aimed for his head, the sound of his cackle right next to her, unfair and distracting and she pathetically missed the target the moment he hit her knee.

“How dare you!”

She looked for shelter, ignored the warmth of his thigh against her leg through the fabric of her jeans and tried not think about how she was close enough to smell the combination of soap and gun oil that radiated off of his skin. Suppressed the almost physical need to bury her nose in the curve of his neck just to see if the scent was more prominent. She felt like a pathetic little school girl. She felt 14 and stupid and this was not the time to elaborate on any possible attraction that _wasn't there, not even in the slightest_ and missed another shot as if she was a bloody amateur.

Clint cursed under his breath and she fought the blush that tried to creep up her skin.

She evaded his next move, pulled herself together as much as it was humanly possible next to the personified distraction that was him and aimed once again with all the concentration she could muster.

This time she hit his shoulder.

“HA! Ha! You see that, bitch? That is just the beginning! You can't beat me!” Her celebratory laugh was disproportionate and hysterical and there was a wide smile on his unjustly handsome face and it robbed enough of her attention to just barely swerve his next shot.

Her nerves were on fire as he winked at her and for a moment she considered how well of a diversion it could be if she just licked his cheek. If he'd kill her on instinct.

He missed her by not even half an inch, pulled her out of the train of thought that had no place in any of this with the sound of his laughter and just as she glanced at him, waiting for the opportunity of a clean shot, he grinned at her in a way that cut right through her ribcage and she pressed the wrong button.

“Don't you believe you have the upper hand, Bucko!”

She noticed the way he aimed for her, was ready to slide out of his attack once again when he eradicated everything that was left of her concentration.

“Just because I didn't shoot you in the head yet doesn't mean you won't be dead in the next 30 seconds.”

And he finished her off. Her character dropped to the ground and _it couldn't be_ and she wanted to scream out but..

All the air had left the room in an instant. Someone groaned in frustration right next to her and she couldn't blink away the wetness that had appeared out of nowhere.

Her jaw dropped to the floor.

Not the slightest tremor in her hands.

And her heart had stopped beating.

She couldn't rip eyes away from him. All the terror she had swallowed for years bubbled up all at once. There was chaos seeping into every part of her and just before she could open her mouth to.. _what exactly?.._ realization caught up with him, the controller between his fingers cracked and splintered into tiny pieces and she couldn't stop thinking about the irony of it.

There was an assault of regret that took over his expression until she hardly recognized him anymore.

“Shit!” He railed, his lips immediately pressed into a thin line as his hands started to brush the crushed controller off of his lap like it was burning his skin. His own panic evident and heart-wrenching. Everything about him clearly filled with a fear that matched her own.

She just repeated the sound of his voice inside her head. Uttering what she had known for 19 years and what should have never made sense to her. The sentence she had carried under her skin since the day she was born. Words that had told of something so entirely different than everything that was right in front of her this very moment.

She didn't know what to say.

“I didn't mean to.. I didn't think..”

He reached for her hands, changed his mind the last second, shook his head, closed his mouth.

Darcy just looked at him.

“This is the reason I was terrified of you all my fucking life?”

It wasn't more than a whisper. It was so quiet she wouldn't be sure he had even heard her if it wasn't for the way he flinched back as if she had hit him and this time she didn't feel sorry about it. This time she didn't know what to feel altogether.

She held her palm out for him instead. Tried for any kind of contact that could prove to her this was real and she was awake and present and hadn't just blown a fuse and spiralled into madness. But he was keeping his distance. Apologies falling from his lips as if it changed a fucking thing and for a ridiculous second she wasn't sure if it was appropriate. If this was better than the finality she had expected.

If this was maybe so much worse.

He didn't dare to look at her face. Couldn't meet her eye and avoided her touch and he mumbled another 'I'm so sorry.' and almost stumbled over his feet in his attempt to get as far away from her as possible. Graceless and hurried and her gaze glued to his movement, her limbs frozen on the spot as she watched him leave her instead of granting the death his words had promised.

And her chest ached like he'd ripped it open. Her mouth dry and speechless and she didn't care for the confused questions Clint started to throw her way or how Sam rushed after his retreating figure and she wanted to get up and follow. But her feet were heavy, her airways corded up and the reality that he didn't want her to so apparent, she didn't know if she would ever be able to move again.

“My whole life was a miscalculation..” she chocked and Clint's arms wrapped around her shoulders, harshly shaking her body and she needed a couple of minutes until she realized it was her own sobbing that put her into motion.

“What the fuck just happened, Darcy?” Clint asked again, the back of his hand brushing over her damp cheeks and she looked right through him, unable or unwilling to articulate any answer that could suffice and just surrendered to the onslaught of tears that just didn't stop.

“You want me to get Jane? Or Steve?”

There was something wrong inside her brain. She wasn't able to close her eyes. Her lungs burned from the lack of oxygen but she couldn't recall what to do.

“Darcy?”

She was going to die. This was the day she had prepared herself for all her life. This was the way it was going to end.

“Darcy, I think you're having a panic attack.. Darcy, just breathe!”

She was floating. Clint's hands around her forearms slipped right through her and she couldn't descry the beat of her heart. Her head felt too heavy.

“Darcy Anne Lewis, you concentrate on breathing, okay? Look at me! Darcy, I'm here.”

He placed her palms onto his chest as if the heaving of it would prompt her own to mimic the movement and her eyes burnt through the spot their hands connected and she didn't feel his touch.

“I'm right here with you, Darce. Nothing is gonna happen to you.”

His voice was calm and low and droned through the dizziness that expanded to the tips of her fingers. Mumbled different words than the ones she had waited for for as long she could remember. The one's that would put and end to all of it.

“I won't let any harm come to you, Darcy, do you hear me?”

Words across her thigh that would one day stop the longing she had tried so hard to make herself believe she had left behind. Once she would hear them she knew..

“You're save. You are okay. I'm taking care of you.”

_Barnes had been the one to say them._

“I'm not gonna die..”

The fabric of his shirt was sturdy but soft against her skin.

“No Darce, you're going to be perfectly fine.”

His thumb drew lazy circles against her cheekbone as she finally opened her mouth, breathing in for the first time in what felt like years and she just stared at the cyrillic letters that wrapped around his wrist, feminine and delicate in ways she had never expected and for once didn't choke on the envy that had filled her stomach every time she had looked at it before.

“This is not the end.” She said and Clint nodded. So obviously unaware what exactly it was she was talking about and she just leaned her forehead against his collarbone, everything else dried out and brittle at the tip of her tongue.

She closed her eyes this time, the soft sound of his exhale close and alive and didn't dare to replay anything that had happened.

Not for now.

Maybe not at all.

 

*

 

Clint didn't ask any more questions but he brought her home and filled her bathtub and it wasn't until she dragged her body out of the water and into her kitchen that she noticed that it didn't mean he had kept his mouth shut.

“My face looks good on you.”

There had been a time where she would have felt embarrassed to stand in front of Steve Rogers clad in nothing but an oversized Captain America T-shirt. It felt like another life entirely.

“Stop flirting with me.” She said but there was no venom in her voice.

Steve sat at her kitchen-table. Uninvited, a beer in his hands and so obviously nervous she kept looking for the parts of her that wanted to ease is discomfort. There was too much of her own to really bother. It felt weird to think about it.

Out of character, drained and indifferent in all the ways that didn't matter. So much else started to matter now.

She took the chair next to him and kept quiet. Her wet hair against her shoulder left cold traces on the cotton of her shirt. Steve's hand that reached for her own was a stark contrast.

“Darcy.” he begun and she wasn't ready for anything he had to say.

“I need a new security-protocol for my apartment.” She tried but humour didn't work.

Nothing worked. She was so completely out of her element.

“Clint told me what happened.. sort of.” He continued and squeezed her hand in what was probably meant to be soothing. It didn't do jack shit either.

“So what happened?” She asked and it was only partly because she felt like pretending everything was fine. Mostly she wasn't sure what had happened in the first place. Mostly she wanted to see what it looked like through someone else's eyes.

Maybe she felt like being someone else for a change too.

“You were playing video games and talked nonsense and then Bucky freaked and you had a panic attack.”

It sounded just as bad as she imagined. He looked at her with emphasis.

“That is the official version.”

Another dramatic pause.

“Now to the truth.”

His expression was so insecure. The pressure against her skin a bit too tight for comfort.

“Darcy, I know.”

He held her sight, the implication so clear but she wanted him to spell it out just to be sure it didn't simply happen inside her head.

“You know what exactly?”

There was some kind of anger waiting behind all of it.

“Darcy, I've known for awhile.”

Then it pushed through.

 

“ **You did fucking what**?”

 

She felt her eyes widen, her heartbeat quicken and a slight tremble in her fingers. She wasn't entirely certain what it even meant. She was completely sure she wanted to hit him in the face.

“What the fucking hell have you known for awhile now, Steve?”

He crouched down on the kitchen chair, tried to make himself smaller and in every other situation she would have laughed at him. She didn't feel like laughing now.

For a few moments there was just silence. Just the low hum of her fridge and the sound of their breathing.

“It's why I didn't tell you. In the beginning I mean. When I was gone. Why I was so scared the truth would scare you off..”

The anger still wanted to break his nose. With every ounce of control she had, she tried to force it down.

“I wasn't sure at first. I mean. How could I? But then when I saw him on the bridge and you confirmed your mark was black I.. it all just clicked. It was okay as long as I wasn't sure.. but then I couldn't tell you. I couldn't lie to you about it, because I knew it was true and not just some huge weird coincidence. You're.. you're one of my best friends, Darcy. I didn't want to give you any hope if the chance that I could actually find him was so low and I couldn't lie to you either.. so I just shut you out.. and I'm sorry..”

“What are you even talking about?” This time she didn't have to play dumb, his rambling incoherent and so full of emotions she couldn't place and the screams of her anger in the back of her head turned into a growl and she wanted to hurt him just a little less. Mostly she wanted to understand.

“God, I mean. Back then, before the war.. his mark was always grey. As long as I've known him, his mark was grey. Grey, on his thigh and it called him a sergeant. It's even part of why he enlisted I think, because his words told him one day he'd be a sergeant. But they were always grey, even when we got to the age where people usually already married their mates, but he was never worried. 'One day she'll be there', he said.”

He couldn't hold her sight. His hands firmly clasped around his bottle and his eyes concentrated on the floor. Like he was afraid of the way she would look at him after he was finished.

“He drew pictures of you, you know? 'said he saw you in his dreams. Again and again for as long as I can remember and that's why I was so weird when I first saw you, Darcy, because I've known your face long before I ever met you.”

He took a long draft from his beer and she just followed his motion. Hanging onto every word he uttered as if her life depended on it. Maybe in some ways it did.

“But of course I wasn't sure at first. I mean, it's been years since I've seen the drawings and for awhile I thought it was a mere coincidence. It couldn't be true, you know? But.. I got to know you and it fit. And I could see you be the one he was talking about.. even if he was gone for 70 years by then. I thought this might be some huge cosmic joke and when I asked Jane and she said she believes your mate is dead.. it kinda made sense. And then I saw him on the bridge and I called you and you confirmed my speculation and.. I _knew_. I knew I had been right from the beginning. And I didn't want to lie to you.. I didn't want to let you know he was out there and alive when I couldn't be sure I wouldn't have to be the one to kill him. Or that he might be the one to end me instead. I didn't want to give you any false hope so I just kept quiet. And that was stupid and unfair.. I know that now. Clint told me what he said to you. What is written on your skin and.. I'm so sorry Darcy.. I should have known better.”

She wanted to hate him for it. She wished she could scream and yell and turn her back on all of it but the anger was muffled and quiet and his hand warm and secure and it felt no longer like he was holding hers for anything but his own sake. _There_ was the part of her that wanted to wipe the sadness from his eyes. She forced it down too.

She was still more offended than she could ever put into words. Maybe it was the only thing that stopped her from crying.

“So you only remember to tell me this now?” She made a grabby motion for his drink and emptied it in one swift gulp. “It's not like I thought all my life my soulmate was a serial-killer who was gonna fucking end me or something.”

Steve still didn't meet her eyes for a few seconds. Just stared at his knees in what appeared to be some kind of guilt.

_Good,_ she thought. Still upholding her best 'I'm pissed and you're gonna pay for that'-face.

“To be fair.. he kind of is a serial killer. 70 years of assassinating for HYDRA and all.” a different voice piped in and she threw her empty bottle into the direction of one Clint Barton that should absolutely not be standing next to them this very moment.

He snatched it before it could hit his face.

“Does anyone in this freaking building understand what privacy means?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and squinted her eyes at the both of them. “Also, you're not funny.”

“Please, I'm hilarious.”

Clint pulled the remaining kitchen chair back and slumped down across from her. For a minute he just mustered them in silence.

“So if the two of you didn't spin bullshit for the last couple minutes, I think I got it right.” He pulled a face and started picking at the plate of chocolate-cookies she hadn't touched since she made them two nights ago.

“Which means..?” Steve still looked slightly constipated and this time it almost made her smile.

She didn't understand a thing but somehow she felt lighter.

“Everyone's favourite intern and your cheating shit of a friend are meant to be and here I was wasting money on your lousy ass to get into her pants.”

Steve's befuddlement might be the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

“Cheating shit.. your.. what?” He sputtered and she couldn't stop the chuckle that followed.

“Call of Duty, man! I thought you were paying attention. There's no way in hell he'd be able to beat both me and Darce just like that. There's gotta be some way he rigged the game!”

“In my defence, I was kind of distracted okay? He wouldn't have made these shots if he didn't...”

She broke off before she could.. before she had to...

“If he didn't say your words, yada yada, I get it. You're soulmates, very lovely.”

She sometimes wondered how much easier life could be, if she was Clint Barton.

“And because of that my 100 bucks are gone for good. Nat was willing to extend the bet until Christmas. Now poof.”

He made an exaggerated gesture with his hands and threw Steve a look that couldn't be more reproachful. Darcy was simply snickering in her seat.

“What bet? What.. Darcy's pants? And Nat?”

She was so glad she hadn't told him anything about the bet before.

“I thought the two of _you_ would be the ones doing the nasty. Even bet on it. Nat, Stark and Bruce were in on it too and now that Darce's basically betrothed, I'm humiliated and a 100 dollars lighter..”

If she wasn't so busy cackling at Clint's crestfallen face she would probably feel sorry for him.

“Darcy and me..?”

She watched the blush creep up Steve's cheeks and it made her laugh even harder.

“Nat _knew_ that I wasn't.. that I.. Darcy, you're a beautiful woman but I.. I never thought like that.. I.. Natasha knows that I think of you like a sister, why would she even..?”

It just kept getting better. The muscles in her stomach started to ache as she bubbled over.

“Ooooh, that little vixen!” Clint sounded scandalized but there was a bit of pride in his expression. “She totally let me walk right into it.. gosh that woman.”

His fingers caressed over the letters on his wrist and the motion almost snapped her out of her hysterics. Almost. If it wasn't for the burning red of Steve's face and the petrified stutter in his voice as if he needed to defend her honour.

“It was never like that, I.. I promise.. Darcy.. it's not.. I mean.. every man would be glad to.. but I..”

She finally took pity and stopped him with a swift pat on the shoulder.

“Don't sweat it man,” She panted, once she found enough air to form words. “Jane thought the same thing like half a year ago. I'm not really offended you're just as into it as I am.”

He nodded repeatedly like a scorned child and it forced another chuckle out of her. Clint's pout didn't help either.

“So what now?” He said and just like that it felt like the temperature dropped and she was right back where she started. The memory of Barnes' voice right next to her. The shattered plastic. Everything Steve had told her.

“What's going to happen?”

Clam hands fidgeted at the seam of her shirt and she was so occupied with staring at the men in front of her she needed awhile to recognize them as her own. Her mouth was dry and the silence almost too much to bear.

They looked just as helpless as she felt.

“How is he?” She finally asked and peered at the side of Steve's face. She wasn't even sure if she really wanted an answer. Like there was nothing that felt like the right place to start.

“According to Wilson he's busy killing punching-bags in the gym. The body count is five so far.” Clint said after a brief glance at his cellphone.

Steve looked like he was close to tears once again and just then she wondered why it wasn't Jane sitting across from her. Why he wasn't with the one who might need him even more than she did. There would have been time for this later. He swallowed audibly and kept his composure.

“He didn't want to talk to me.” He mumbled and sounded so heartbroken she could hardly refrain from pulling him close “Told me to 'piss off' and stop acting like his mother..”

“Well, he's not completely wrong, is he?” The smirk on Clint's face was still entirely too cheerful. “He's simply overwhelmed. Probably angry that he didn't handle it better... probably kind of scared. Give him some time.”

His grin was sort of infuriating and she wasn't entirely sure if she felt ridiculed or was simply envious of his nonchalance. There had been a fear in Barnes' face she hadn't expected. It left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Scared of me?” she asked instead and he mustered her from head to toe and threw her an incredulous look as if it was offensive to even dare to doubt him.

“You women are terrifying creatures.” He said, his fingernail still drawing circles across his wrist. “Especially of the soulmate variety. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about – mine actually tried to kill me. And that's not even the reason I am scared of her.”

For awhile she just stared at him. Kind of dumbfounded. Twice as ashamed. The way he lifted his eyebrows still expectant and amused. She knew Clint's story. She knew the things he had done to get where he was right now and sometimes, along the way, so preoccupied by her own frustration she had forgotten to consider it. All of a sudden she felt crude for her annoyance. With his carefree attitude and quick tongue she was too used to ignore the hardships he had had to overcome. The things he had seen. The blood on his hands.

“I didn't..”

The smile on his face was honest and kind and there was so much more behind it she had hardly taken the time to pay attention to. In a way he was a better friend than she had been. The thought hurt more than she was willing to admit. There was too much hurt already.

Hurt and the heavy, glaring question marks that seemed to burn right through her skin.

“But you're not really scared of her anymore, are you?” She asked and ignored the countless apologies she wanted to utter. She knew him well enough to try. He would only roll his eyes and tell her to stop with the sentimentality.

He chuckled and shook his head at all the worry that filled up her chest.

“I probably really should be, but naah. We got this thing called 'trust' going for us. Built through years and years of corporate manslaughter and saving the world together. It's kinda hot.”

He took another cookie, an airiness to his expression as if he was discussing the weather. There was a strength in him she could never rival. Not for the first time she wished she could be just a little more like him.

“And that's just the thing, isn't it? That man hasn't known what trust means for trice as long as there's a Darcy. He's trying to figure out what it means to have his life back and then this happens. Now it's said and done and you can't just take it back. _'Here's your person, take care of them' -_ It's the scariest shit in the world.”

His words felt like another kick to the stomach and her throat tightened. There was no blame in his tone and she knew that it wasn't exactly like she had a choice but the mere thought to be another burden, to be something else to make it harder... She didn't allow herself to concentrate on everything Steve had said. From the moment she had known of his existence she had hoped it could have been easier. From the day they brought him home she wanted to be of use.

Part of her just wanted to go back in time and keep her mouth shut, wanted to return to the days she had been so sure her ending would be different.

Now the possibilities where endless. It was so much more frightening than she had never dared to imagine.

“I'm another liability.” she whispered before she was able to stop herself.

Steve's gasp was instantaneous. The objection strong in his voice.

“No, Darcy.. that's..”

“Of course you are.” Clint cut him off and the outrage in Steve's face was almost laughable. Once again it didn't reach her.

“Every kind of sincere connection is to an extent. It's the flipside of caring. You feel responsible, you worry, you're preoccupied with someone elses well-being. The only way to avoid that is to cut yourself off from any kind of human interaction, and we all know that's not the road to happiness.”

Rationally she knew that. Of course she did. It wasn't the epiphany of wisdom and knowledge she needed but somehow it felt good to hear someone say it out loud. Somehow it made her almost believe him.

“But it's the timing that's off.”

She just wished for an answer that would make everything appear light and simple. Just this one time.

“Timing's a fucking myth. There's always a reason to why it's complicated. So now he's in a bad place, you're patient, he'll get better. Let him freak out for awhile – work through your own bullshit. Get to know each other and it'll all work out in the end.”

He shoved another cookie into his mouth and gave her a crooked smile. She didn't know what she was supposed to feel or do and so she just tried to return his grin, a strange sensation below her navel she couldn't place.

She had no clue what to think about any of it.

“I really love you, you know that?”

He laughed at that and blew her a kiss.

“The way you look at my ass in uniform gave me some ideas.”

She flipped him the finger and didn't reward him with another answer. Didn't need to.

The weird feeling spread throughout her stomach, filled her lungs and warmed her heart until it seeped right through her blood-stream.

She had been wrong about everything. Now was the chance to see what life had yet to offer after all and she didn't know where to go from there. Everything was new and different and confusing and there was so much she still needed to understand. Her ending had been the only thing she'd been sure of. Now she didn't even understand what path she wanted to choose.

Suddenly there was a future right in front of her and it was blank and waiting.

Clint was right.

There was _hope_ inside her chest.

It was the scariest shit in the world.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. I planned an update every fortnight and that so very clearly didn't work out. It's been months now.  
> Life happened and kicked me in the face repeatedly. Sickness in the family, an 11 year relationship ended and I had to move.  
> So now I live in another town, still jobless and only had internet for a week now. I'm so damn sorry. I would have had enough material for the next chapter but when I reread it I just hated it and rewrote the whole thing. Which.. of course took time. So now here we are.   
> The story developed a life of its own and I am not entirely sure If I'll be able to keep it at 6 chapters. We'll see about that. 
> 
> Thank you to every single one who commented and kept my motivation to keep writing alive. I want to finish this and I sure as hell will.   
> You are wonderful, each and every one of you and I hope you still like where I'm going with this.

 

_Words were different when they lived inside of you._

 

– _Benjamin Alire Sáenz_

 

 

She didn't call Jane.

 

In a way it felt like she owed her an explanation, the truth, _anything_ but the lack of communication she had held onto since the moment Barnes had opened his mouth and changed everything that had seemed to be written in stone, but somehow that wasn't enough.

 

She knew she should have. Maybe it would have helped distract her from the erratic pounding of her heart or the way she kept glancing at her bedroom door every couple seconds as if she expected it to open up and for him to be there. She wasn't really sure if it even was what she wanted. If Jane should be there to make sense of it all.

 

But it didn't feel right. Nothing really did anymore.

Her head ached, her eyes burnt and she clicked the open text-window she had been staring at for what felt like hours away for the seventh time. It had been empty and demanding and she didn't feel ready to repeat to anyone what she couldn't truly grasp herself yet.

 

Maybe her 14 year old self would have been happy about it. Would bask in what looked like everything she never dared to wish for. On paper it did. In reality on the other hand..

Or maybe even 14 year old Darcy would understand that although she hadn't met the end she had expected, that didn't mean life had turned into a fairy tale either.

She stared at her darkened mobile screen and wondered if she was still the kind of person to wish for one.

 

_Tell Barnes I'm okay. Tell him I'd like to talk to him tomorrow._

 

She reached out to Steve before she could convince herself otherwise. After all these hours. After she had to almost throw him out of her apartment to even try to find some peace in between the constant turmoil that hurt her ears, no matter the silence that surrounded her.

 

For six minutes she was alone in the darkness. Then her screen lit up and for a few excruciating seconds she was too terrified to open his answer.

 

Jane would roll her eyes at that and rip the phone right out of her hands. She would tell her to stop being a baby and to clear the air.

 

But Jane wasn't here and there was no one to blame for that but herself.

 

Only Darcy in her empty bedroom, alone with all her anxiety and a confusion so tangible, she felt immobilized.

 

She opened the message.

 

_He says 'alright'_

 

It didn't calm her in the slightest.

 

 

*

 

There was no right way to prepare herself. Or there was no right way period.

 

She had hardly slept but that wasn't surprising. She couldn't even remember the last time she hadn't been tired and the exhaustion weighed so heavy on every perceivable level it had surpassed physical months ago. Rest was a hopeless endeavour. It didn't stop her from refilling her coffee mug for the third time.

No matter what she did her hands just kept on shaking.

 

She had skipped work in the morning. Of course she had. Without a second thought and just a single call out to Jarvis. With Thor's return so fresh she didn't know if Jane would need her in the first place. She wasn't sure what to tell her if she did. She wasn't ready to face anyone.

 

But it was time she did. In fact long overdue. At least 15 minutes. Or 18 hours. Or 24 years.

 

She emptied the mug and refilled for the last time. She hadn't even dared to look in the mirror.

There were probably dark circles underneath her eyes, her hair tousled and she wasn't sure if the quick shower and two minor freak-outs had relieved her of the smudged eye-liner that had Clint compare her to a panda only hours ago. She was late already. I didn't matter anymore.

 

Jarvis had said Barnes was waiting.

 

Maybe she should slip into something more formal.

 

She was stalling time.

 

Apparently Clint was on his way too and although it made her groan out loud to think that Stark wasn't even able to drop protocol this one time, it was better than the image of three overgrown babysitters watching her every move. He said she wouldn't see him, claimed he'd loose the hearing-aids.

 

She didn't really believe that last part. She wasn't even sure what exactly it would be she didn't want him to listen to.

 

She contemplated changing her shirt for the fourth time.

 

“Sergeant Barnes enquired your estimated time of arrival, Miss Lewis.”

 

This was real and it was going to happen.

 

“I'll be on my way in a second.”

 

It was going to happen _now_.

Not even her 14 year old self knew what to feel about that.

 

She made her way out of the apartment. Slowly. As if she still waited for anything to stop her.

The bordeaux coloured fabric of her pullover fell down over her thighs and she kept pulling it lower and lower as if she could hide behind if she just tried hard enough and again she thought she should have chosen differently.

She was almost surprised that Tony's smug grin didn't greet her the moment she stepped into the elevator. Only her pale face in the mirror staring back at her and she palmed her cheeks and let out another groan.

 

“Do you require assistance?”

 

She stared at the ceiling as if this way she could meet him at eye level and tried very hard not to allow herself to be uncomfortable about it. About everything. Tony's absence felt suspicious.

 

“I'm fine, J.. I just..” She cut herself off and petted the wall as if it was him who needed comfort.

 

“J, How many people know about this?”

 

It scared her so much more than it should. She still hadn't said a word to Jane about any of it and she knew it wasn't right. To swallow her secrecy until it would erode her from the inside. Like she had for most of her life. Like she thought she had finally left behind.

It wasn't shameful. Rationally she knew that. Jane would probably call it a good thing and tell her to stop hiding from it like the coward she so clearly had become. Not to treat this like a secret she needed to hide from the world no matter the inkling that kept on telling her that she should.

That maybe she wanted to.

 

“So far only Captain Rogers and Agent Barton appear to be properly informed. Although I suspect Agent Romanoff's insight. Sergeant Barnes denied Mr Wilson any explanation and requested privacy.”

 

They were both silent for a moment.

 

“And you didn't tell Tony?”

 

“As long as neither Sir's nor yours or Sergeant Barnes' safety is compromised I didn't deem it essential to inform Sir. I assumed his probing tendencies might be an inconvenience to your current state. If I was wrong in my presumption I could rectify his knowledge immediately.”

 

He sounded a bit sheepish and Darcy was in awe.

 

“No, NO! That's perfect! Thank you, J!”

 

Not for the first time she wished she could hug him. She petted the wall again instead.

 

“So far he and Captain Rogers have been merely notified of your intended meeting. They are aware of Agent Barton's supervision and Captain Rogers promised to 'only interfere if strictly necessary'.”

 

His statement was followed by the ping of the elevator and for another anxious second she considered to simply wait until the door closed again.

 

“Sergeant Barnes is waiting.”

 

As if there had ever been a chance she had forgotten. She glanced at the mirror one last time.

 

“Here goes nothing.”

 

Again she tugged at her clothing, almost on instinct, and stepped out of the cabin.

 

The gym was empty and for a moment she wondered if she had picked the wrong floor. If this was a sign that she shouldn't do this in the first place and she was already half-convinced to turn around and just hide inside her bedroom for the rest of forever when the locker-room door opened.

 

He didn't look as terrified as the last time she'd seen him but he only met her eye for a short second and seemed so tense she waited for his muscles to snap as he took a step towards her.

 

“Before you say anything.. I think it's best to keep any of this as quiet as possible.”

 

There was no sound whatsoever. The distance between them felt like miles. She moved a little closer.

 

“That's reasonable.. I guess.” She felt a little dumbfounded.

 

He watched her without the slightest stir. His skin was still flushed from the apparent shower he must have just taken and dark, wet strands of hair fell over his shoulders.

 

“So.. since we have hidden audience and all, do you think I should stay here or could we sit down or..”

 

A drop of water run down over his metallic biceps and she followed its trail. Once again she wanted to reach out.

 

“Or.. it probably doesn't matter since.. you could probably kill me just as easily from over there..”

 

She cursed her mouth the moment it opened up again and swallowed the guilt at the way he flinched at her words.

 

“I don't want to kill you.” He said quietly, almost a whisper and studied her face as if every possible shift of expression was pivotal.

 

“I'm sorry.. I'm.. I ramble. I'm nervous.. I say dumb shit. I know that you didn't agree to talk to me so you could finish me off or...” She slapped her cheek lightly and shook her head like it would chase away any bad thought that still clung to her. “Bad Darcy! Clint's probably having a field day with this.”

 

He arched his brow and kept on staring.

 

“Barton's probably too busy aiming his gun at me. The air-vent's behind you, he can't read your lips.”

 

“That's.. somehow comforting. I'm not sure about that gun part.”

 

“I am.” He lowered himself to the floor and watched her expectantly. She mimicked his movement, shuffled closer until he was only an arms-length away. There was a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. She tried not to dwell on it.

 

“I'm sorry.” He said before she could even begin to collect her thoughts enough to figure out what to do next.

 

“Sorry.. for my words?”

 

He looked pained and didn't hold her sight any longer.

 

“Sorry for all of it.” The floor appeared to be much more interesting that she could ever be. “Sorry for those damn words. Sorry for not thinking clearly when I should have known that whatever left my stupid mouth would be printed on you your whole damn life. Sorry for not keeping my distance as much as I could have.. sorry that it's..”

 

He was getting more and more agitated and in one ridiculous rush of bravery she reached out for his hand and pulled it closer, tightly clasped in between her own and it was enough to break him out of his incipient rant.

 

“So how long have you known?”

 

His eyes snapped back to her face. He looked so much younger, so unsure. Nervous in a way she could have related to so well only seconds ago.

 

“Since you've said my words in the kitchen. Since that night I..”

 

“Steve told me you had drawings of me.. back then.”

 

His lips were pressed into a thin line for a short moment.

 

“I don't remember.” He finally said and only then it occurred to her that he hadn't pulled away. His skin was warm and dry underneath her fingertips and she squeezed it slightly, if only to see if he would let her.

 

“That you were an artist, or me?”

 

She didn't understand why she felt so calm all of a sudden. Sitting face to face with the man who could wipe her out of existence with as much as a flinch of his muscles. She let her thump draw a lazy circle across his skin and didn't dare to repeat the sentence that had just flashed through her mind like a shock-wave. Not even to herself.

 

“Stevie was the artist.” He slowly interlaced their fingers and she wasn't entirely sure if it was conscious. “I was... I remember.. something. When you stepped onto that landing deck.. you were familiar but.. I didn't connect the dots. There used to be something.. I don't remember creating anything.. but I remember there was something I needed to see with my eyes open.”

 

The palm of his hand was deeply calloused but it wasn't uncomfortable.

 

“He said you dreamed about me.”

 

He looked right through her. As if he was trying to make out images he had long forgotten. For awhile they both kept quiet.

 

“I kind of dreamed about you too..” She admitted and it wasn't the right thing to say. The pained expression returned with twice its intensity and like her touch suddenly stung he snatched his arm away from from her.

 

“I shouldn't.. that's..”

 

“It's not your fault, okay? I didn't know it was you.. only.. flashes.. You couldn't know I was sitting first row to the horror show that was your life.”

 

His expression made her once again wonder why she had to keep opening her mouth in the worst way possible. Part of her felt like honesty was the only way to approach any of it.

 

“Barnes..?”

 

He stared at the hand that had touched her. His arms close to his chest as if he was trying to fold them into himself and for a minute he just didn't react. Then his shoulders slowly loosened, his hands dropped into his lap as if he had just finished some internal conversation she knew nothing about and lifted his head back to her probably anxious ridden face.

 

“Bucky.” He said and there was a resolution in his tone, so different from the panic that had radiated off of his frame just a moment ago.

 

“I'm sorry that it had to be me.”

 

She didn't like it in the slightest.

 

“You.. what? That is bullshit! What does that even mean? Do you have any idea what I expected this day to be like before I knew who branded me with that fucking death threat?”

 

She tried very hard not to throw all the pent up anger she still couldn't let go of right into his face. Tried to remain calm and collected.

 

The only one who seemed to succeed was him.

 

“I'm not who you expected me to be.”

 

She groaned at that and stopped herself the last second from hitting his shoulder.

 

“As far as expectations go I should have died yesterday, so thank Thor you're not!”

 

There was a hint of impatience.

 

“Don't you understand that I can't give you anything you want?”

 

He was a stubborn bastard and she had read about that before but glaring her in the face it was so much more infuriating than she was equipped to deal with. Or maybe it was the reflection of herself that made her reach out and slap at his chest anyway. No matter how many voices inside her head kept on telling her how it was a bad idea. How he might retaliate any second.

 

He only flinched slightly. His eyes resolute and fixated on her face that ought to be flushed by now.

 

“Are you now just quoting every chick-flick ever made? I don't have a fucking clue what I want, man, until 20 hours ago I thought this whole thing was never in the cards for me period. No matter where we go from here it's better than anything I've imagined!”

 

She slapped his chest again for good measure and this time he reached for her wrist; Carefully as if she was made out of paper, and lowered it slowly back into her own lap.

 

When he raised his voice again it was so quiet she had to hold her breath to make out his words.

 

“I'll never be well enough to be who you want me to be.”

 

In a way she wished she hadn't.

 

“Maybe I just want you to be you.”

 

His lips twisted in a caricature of a smile and it didn't look happy at all.

 

“And that's precisely the problem, doll.”

 

Her stare didn't waver. Every fibre of her being yelled at her to smack the resolve right out of his face and she felt her own obstinacy pushing through.

 

“You're such a fucking cliché.” She spat and there was a twitch in his expression, so minuscule she might have imagined it and all at once she was filled with the certainty that this was not the place to back down.

 

“I'm not just giving up because you think you're too much for me to handle. I spent my whole damn life thinking you would be the end of me. I'm not some naïve breakable thing that's gonna run the first time she thinks shit's getting complicated. Newsflash – life is complicated. So if you don't want me here – fine. But don't start to act like this is something you're doing for me.”

 

His stoic look slightly waned, a pinch of annoyance coming through and even if it wasn't the reaction she had hoped for, it was better than the stock-still mask of gloom she had almost expected. For a moment she just watched him shake his head and suppressed the grin that tickled at the corners of her mouth. She was at least reaching _something_.

 

“I'm just trying to be your friend, Barnes and it's not going to ruin your life.”

 

His frown would be intimidating if she didn't know with arbitrary doubtlessness that he was nothing to be afraid of. That he would never be a danger to her. She felt it in her gut.

 

“It's not just me.” He finally mumbled between clenched teeth. “There are people out there. People who'd enjoy nothing more than wiping you out once they got just an inkling of who you might be.”

 

It took more energy than she had left to spare to not roll her eyes at that. She let out a resigned sigh and stared back at him.

 

She still wasn't afraid.

 

“Have you any idea how important I am?” She begun and for once she didn't feel bad to admit it. For once it gave her strength. “Not at all. I'm a glorified intern that somehow got lost in between superheroes. I'm like so insignificant I could go in front of Hydra's main quarters, jump around holding a cardboard target over my head and they still wouldn't shoot at me."

 

He didn't smile. Just held her sight, a determination in his eyes that made her throat dry.

 

“They would shoot at you now.” He said, no apology in his voice and Darcy understood.

 

“Sooner or later they'd find out. They have a way of finding things out.”

 

She lowered her head as if she could hide behind the curtain of tousled locks that fell into her face and just glanced at the movement of his fingertips against the fabric of his sweat pants. Of course he had a point. Of course anything remotely good might just open the next can of worms right after she'd thrown out the first one. But Darcy Lewis had never been particularly talented when it came to backing down. She wasn't ready to wordlessly exchange one mortal fear for another. That damn sentence still rung clear inside her head, following the constant repeat of the one his heedlessness had branded her with.

 

Holding his hand she had felt save. Maybe for the first time in all her life.

 

Even Hydra would have to rip the chance for that out of her cold, dead fingers.

 

“And they still might, even if you won't ever talk to me again.”

 

She heard him swallow and maybe it was the 'fated connection' or just her natural sensibility to the slightest signs of dismay and all her instincts pushed her closer. Made her reach for his touch once again and he didn't fight it. Just let her hold on to his wrist, his expression unreadable but concentrated and he didn't move an inch, as if he was once again afraid it'd startle her. As if there was a part of him that maybe didn't want her to let go.

 

“I'm not like you people, I just got entangled in all of this. If this makes me a target then there's nothing I can do about it.” It left a sour taste in her mouth and she swallowed it along with the tinge of pride that kept on asking her to stop. There was no reaction but he was paying attention.

“But you can. If this puts me in danger maybe the safest place for me is next to you.”

 

She felt him tense underneath her touch. Watched the way he licked his lips like he was preparing to talk just to change his mind the last second. She caught him off guard. The uncertainty in his look sucked the breath right out of her. She didn't remember moving but suddenly he felt a lot closer.

 

His eyes wandered from her eyes to her mouth over her shoulder, down the length of her arm right to the spot they met. He cleared his throat and there was something akin to astonishment lighting up for a brief moment.

 

“I didn't think there was anyone mad enough to look at me for protection.”

 

This time she beamed at him.

 

“Apparently you still got a lot to learn about the endless wonder that is me.”

 

There was the shadow of a grin ghosting over him. Unsure and fleeting. A little sardonic and she might have only caught it because it's what she needed to see.

 

She tightened her grip and tried to hold his sight.

 

“I decided to upgrade, you know? Dethrone the Captain once and for all. I'm gonna be the best fucking friend you ever had.”

 

He shook his had slightly but the smirk on his face was lopsided and distracting and maybe the low chuckle that reached her ears wasn't imaginary.

 

“Good luck telling Steve he's been replaced.” He said and it sounded offhanded and teasing and turned her smile so wide it almost hurt her cheeks.

 

“Please. When I talk, he listens.” She claimed as if it was the truth and couldn't stop staring at the tiny crinkle next to his eyes that formed whenever he grinned. Almost mesmerized by the youthful expression he carried when his face wasn't grim and brooding. She felt kind of high, so much lighter than she was used to. She had no idea what she was doing.

 

“Whatever you say, Darcy Lewis.” He replied and his tone was sarcastic and there was no promise to cling to but it was good enough for now. Had to be. Maybe even better than that.

 

“It's kind of meant to be. You'll see.” Maybe she needed to say it out loud so she could believe.

 

He just snorted in return and there was a certain glint in his eyes.

 

This was just a beginning. It didn't make everything perfect, she knew that. There was so much left to figure out and in most ways they were still strangers but here, right now, with his warm skin beneath her hand there was a chance for something. No matter what exactly it was. What it could be.

 

“Guess I will..”

 

For once waiting didn't seem so bad after all.

 

 

*

 

 

“Oh, Honey you just got home?”

 

Clint's head peeked from the open door of her fridge the moment she entered. She was pretty sure he'd just ripped it open the instant he heard her approach, just so it wouldn't seem like he'd just arrived seconds ago himself.

 

“Someone's gotta put food on the table, Clinton.” She slipped out of her chucks and kicked them into the direction of her couch. “Are the kids asleep yet?”

 

He offered her a beer just as she stepped closer.

 

“Like I've drugged them myself.” His arms were crossed and she didn't really believe the grin on his face but it was easier than what she expected Tony or Steve to be like and so she simply nodded at him, clinked bottles and let herself sink into her kitchen chair.

 

“So you got it all on tape and your jokes ready?”

 

He slipped into the seat across from her and took a long draught.

 

“I hold on to my promises, Darce, but I'm sure video footage could be arranged if you asked Jarvis.” He winked at her and she poked her tongue out in reply.

 

“So how did it go? I witnessed some hot and heavy wrist-grabbing and was mildly disturbed to learn Barnes could actually smile. His answers where kind of inconclusive.”

 

She took a couple of tiny sips and stared at his nose to avoid the intensity of his gaze. She was still half-convinced it was nothing but shameless lies.

 

“Sort of awkward. Kind of good.. I guess.” More sips and she felt a little better talking to the bottle neck instead. “My dreams got shattered – apparently Hydra wouldn't want to shoot me just for me.”

 

He gasped in an outrage she'd buy if she knew him a little less and reached for a comforting shoulder-squeeze.

 

“Don't say that, Darling, you're worth all the bullets.”

 

She let out a humourless laugh and returned to glare at her bottle.

 

“I actually never _really_ considered that, you know?” The room felt suddenly a lot colder and she took another sip to calm her nerves somehow.

 

The afterwards felt stranger than the now had been.

 

“He kinda.. I think he wanted to push me away.. somehow? It was more half-hearted than anything and.. I get it. Being the Winter Soulmate is probably not the safest position to fill but.. even though I always thought I'd be on some radar because of my mark.. I never thought it'd be Hydra's and _because_ of my mark.. you know?”

 

He nodded but she wasn't sure if he really understood. Mostly she wasn't sure if she did.

 

“It's.. just speculation now. Of course. I knew Hydra was always a possibility but.. not to me. I'm Jane's assistant, I'm a nobody and suddenly.. it's a real chance.. it's so surreal... it's.. I'm just Darcy. This kind of stuff doesn't happen to people like me.”

 

Clint just kept quiet, simply let her talk and she kind of loved him for it.

 

“I'm still waiting to wake up from all of this and find some generic crap on my thigh instead..”

 

She gulped down half her beer and let out a deep sigh she didn't even know she was holding.

 

“I told him I wanted to be his friend.”

 

Clint looked concentrated and more serious than she had seen him in months. He seemed to search for something in her face and part of her wished she could read his mind. Part of her was terrified of what she might find.

 

“Do you want to be his friend?”

 

Her bottle left a crescent shape on the surface of her kitchen-table. She followed it's lines with the tip of her fingernail. Clint's intensity burnt right through her facade of composure. She was certain he knew.

 

“I think I always wanted to be his friend. Even before.” Among other things but he didn't to know that. She wasn't sure if she wanted to remember.

 

14-year-old Darcy was a distant memory and so much more shameful than she had ever anticipated. Or maybe it was fate from the get-go. Maybe she wished she could believe that.

 

“But I'm not sure how much good I can do. If I can actually help. I'm just.. me. I feel like I'm dropping bricks any chance I get and I am nowhere close to have enough knowledge to be of use with his kind of trauma. And..”

 

She downed the rest of her drink, anything to wash away the biting sympathy Clint's stare seemed to impale her with. She felt utterly pathetic and 14-year-old Darcy still wept behind closed doors.

 

“His mark called him a Sergeant. You know what Steve said. One day he's going to blame me for that and I don't know how to make up for it.”

 

She didn't dare to look him in the eye.

 

She didn't expect the laugh that followed.

 

“Damn, you're so full of shit, Lewis!”

 

He poked her against the forehead and she was almost offended if she didn't feel like she deserved any ridicule that he would throw her way.

 

“Sweet Jesus, it is staggering how completely wrong you are. It would be kinda sad if it wasn't so absolutely ludicrous.”

 

Warm hands reached over the table and lifted her head with gentle force.

 

“None of this is your damn fault, kid! None of it. You didn't have the tiniest idea and if anyone's to blame for making someone's life harder it's Barnes – he had time to prepare at least. Who do you think you are? Did you keep some awesome clairvoyant mutant powers to yourself that could explain how you could've avoided that?”

 

She tried to answer but his grip against her cheeks distorted the sound into a muffled squeak.

 

“Right! So stop selling yourself short, it's kinda pissing me off. You're my friend, Darce, and I don't use the term lightly. It's not my job to butter you up, but being a friend? You got that. Jane would've starved to death without you and Steve would be drowning in his tears if he could hear you right now... gosh that's the next one who's gonna blame himself for something... You. Got. This.”

 

It wasn't any longer pity his fixated glare attacked her with, there was pure grit slapping her in the face and she kept her mouth firmly shut.

 

“And it's not on you to save him, Darcy.”

 

When he let go of her and she only felt a bit like crying.

 

“I know that.”

 

But _god_ , she wanted to.

 

“Do you?” Something hardened in his tone and it felt like another kick in the teeth.

 

She didn't really know what to say. Every word that swirled around her tongue tasted like pretext.

 

“Clint..” She begun but her cut her off before she was entirely sure where she was going with this.

 

“Don't make any more love-confessions. Nat's getting suspicious.” He said but his wink was friendly and the lump in her throat felt just a little less heavy.

 

“There goes my avoidance tactic.”

 

She pulled the best mock frown she could muster. Clint was having none of it. He raised a single brow and just looked at her. Like he could see through every wall her self-defence instincts kept on building.

Uncomfortable didn't really cut it.

 

“So what did the two of you decide to do now?” He finally asked after a painfully drawn-out minute of silence and she was almost thankful he changed the topic back to something else she wasn't sure what to feel about.

 

“Too keep it quiet for now.” She wasn't even sure if she should say it out loud. “It's complicated enough as it is without anyone meddling more than they should.”

 

He nodded but kept his mouth shut.

 

“And I guess music and movies. Mostly. He agreed to let me show him some of what he missed in the last 70 years. Who would have guessed I'd find someone else to watch experience Harry Potter for the first time?”

 

It sounded so much more facile than it felt and the smile on his face was only almost bitter. Clint was fluent in her bullshit. She chose not to dwell on it. Didn't feel like asking for his thoughts on any of it before she had even begun to sort through her own.

 

They had to start somewhere.

 

“Show him Die Hard first.”

 

The last of her remaining fear was faint and unfamiliar.

 

“You do not tell me what to do, Clinton.”

 

 

She couldn't make out the finish line.

 

 

*

 

It was sort of an agreement. Or an understanding. Or something.

New and terrifying and fragile and some moments she was afraid to blink just for the ridiculous thought that it might all be happening inside her head. Or maybe it wasn't ridiculous. Maybe this had been it and she had finally broken, went batshit crazy and she was still sitting in that goddamn common room, grasping her controller and they were all staring at her.

 

Though it looked more like her apartment. She felt awake at least. Awkward and tense and he hadn't really looked at her since he had stepped in, almost two hour ago, followed by the overgrown babysitter no one had invited and mumbled something about protocol she still wasn't happy about.

 

Barnes looked indifferent. Sipping some sugary drink that hurt her teeth just from watching him and she already went through her second bag of crisps just to occupy her mouth somehow.

All her insecurities would make her regret it in the morning.

 

Steve was sitting to her right, fixated on every minuscule twitch in Barnes' expression and if this wasn't her reality she would laugh about it.

If he was bothered by it, he didn't let it show either.

 

“So what do you think?”

 

The room was chilly enough to conspire the air conditioning had an agenda of its own but it was to no avail. Even through the somewhat prudish distance he kept between them since the moment he'd entered her apartment, his warmth seemed to seep through her clothing.

 

Or maybe it was her nerves.

 

Her palms were a little sweaty but he appeared insistent not to repeat any of the physical contact they might have shared only hours prior and she felt only a little ashamed about it.

 

The tension was thick enough to cut it. Steve's worried stare from the other side of the couch didn't help either. She tried to at least blame him for the 15 inches in between.

 

Barnes cleared his throat and two pairs of eyes jumped to his face. He kept his firmly on the screen.

 

“This is not a christmas movie.”

 

To blame Clint would feel too much like defeat.

 

“BLASPHEMY!”

 

He swept the pillow she aimed at his head away with the mere flick of his wrist and pointedly ignored Steve's immediate gasp that followed.

 

“It's the first step to internalize the spirit!”

 

“It's November.”

 

“Exactly!”

 

“I feel no spirit.”

 

“You will!”

 

He stuffed his mouth with chocolate and didn't roll his eyes. It felt like half a win.

 

“I mean.. It was entertaining.”

 

His face still didn't turn her way.

 

“Oh, wait what I've got in store for you, Barnes!”

 

She crawled on all fours towards her movie collection and pretended to ignore the mildly annoyed “It's Bucky.” that followed. She felt his stare at the back of her head. She didn't turn around to make sure. The list of things she wanted to show him was long and thought-out and if there was nothing of substance to talk about with Steve's overbearing presence looming over their delicate awkwardness she would make the most of it.

 

As it turned out he rejected Johnny Depp's _“That lad seems all wet”_ Willy Wonka and adored _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ from the first minute. If he noticed how she watched him more than the film he was gentleman enough not to mention.

 

It was only after _Scott Pilgrim vs the world_ and the subsequent jabs in Steve's direction he claimed to be utterly baseless that her lack of sleep started to catch up with her. She didn't really want it to end. She would have kept silent. One tiny little yawn though set the Captain into action and before she could find the right words to protest Steve was hugging her goodnight and urged Barnes to follow. He kept hovering over her, glancing at Steve's retreating figure and she wasn't sure if she should try to reach out too. Her hands were clued to her side. To pull him close seemed insufficient and like too much at once and she tried to settle for a warm smile that felt just the same.

 

“So you've given up on instilling the christmas spirit into my old bones I gather?” He begun and it reminded her of the awkward first date farewell she'd went through countless times already. And somehow different.

 

“Never. I gave you options but there's plenty of wonders I still got to show you, Barnes.”

 

He let out a deep sigh. Stilled in the door frame, his eyes on the floor as if he was trying to collect his thoughts. As if there was something else he still wanted to say. As fast as it started it was gone and he shook his head, nodded in her direction briefly and set to follow Steve into the elevator. Darcy felt nervous and useless. Like she had it all wrong once again and now he would take any chance to make sense of it right along with him. She felt her cheeks flush and her heart flutter. Just before he reached the cabin she found her voice again.

 

“Bucky!”

 

He reacted immediately. The tension visibly left his shoulders and his eyes found hers for what felt like the first time of the night. Expectancy. Curiosity. The fleeting glint of _something_ she couldn't place.

 

“Same time tomorrow?”

 

There was a smile on his lips and she remembered breathing had been a lot easier just moments ago.

 

“You bet.”

 

Part of her wished she could tell Jane that night. Stared at her contact information for what felt like hours and kept on locking her screen whenever her fingers started to linger. Like she broke a promise with her silence. Like she wouldn't crush another if she didn't.

Part of her held her back. It wouldn't feel right even if she could find the words.

 

She didn't recognize the voice that kept on telling her.

 

Maybe it sounded too much like her own.

 

 

*

 

 

It had been a week.

 

One glorious, peaceful week without the nagging sensation of any incessant rants. Filled with almost the entirety of her movie collection and enough junk-food that she was fairly certain made her gain a couple pounds. Bucky and Steve still looked as chiselled as ever. Stupid assholes.

 

It had become a little easier. A little closer to comfort and she was getting used to the urge to reach out for him whenever he sat next to her without breaking into cold sweat. He was very careful not to touch her. She was almost able to accept it.

 

They hadn't really _grown closer_ or whatever she had expected to happen in her apparently endless naivety but his presence slowly started to feel normal and most days 14-year-old Darcy kept her mouth shut.

 

But someone else clearly didn't.

 

She had felt somehow protected since their first conversation in the gym just seven days ago but right now Bucky wasn't here and the glare that met her eyes, just a couple inches from her face, let her momentarily forget she was save in the tower.

 

She had never seen Tony Stark so angry.

 

“Good day Patricia Wyman, you've aged well since the last time we've met.” 

 

Jane was busy taking notes or pretending not to notice her predicament. She didn't know how to react.

 

“You're melodramatic.” She naturally chose the worst option possible.

 

“And yet I'm sure you immidiately recognize its reason.”

 

He wiped the book she feigned very hard to be focused on off the desk and she swallowed audibly.

 

Tony actually wasn't all that intimidating in the physical sense. He was taller and broader than her but who wasn't? Compared to the mucled abundance of supermen around them he was fairly average. Leaned over her desk though, with a scowl that could put Natasha to shame, she saw her life flashing before her own eyes.

 

“It is not what it looks like.”

 

“Oh, thank you, I haven't heard that one before. So you're not suicidal – just stupid?”

 

_Right_ into the insecurities.

 

“Woah! Calm down dude. No reason to get personal!”

 

The desk creaked under his grip and she forced herself to hold his stare.

 

“You repeatedly trying to bond with certain death sounds pretty personal to me, Lewis. I have warned you explicitly. Don't mother the mass murderer. You have no idea what you are dealing with.”

 

She was losing her patience. Jane pushed her notes aside and watched Tony with a thoughtful expression.

 

“And you have no fucking idea what this is all about, so stop messing with my business!”

 

His fists turned white and his shoulders started shaking.

 

“You are my business! What is so important that you can't listen to me this one damn time?”

 

She was so close to slapping him in the face. He examined hers quietly.

 

She didn't answer. They had decided to keep silent. Tony would probably ship her off if he had just the tiniest idea.

 

And Jane was listening.

 

“You are trying to fuck him.” It wasn't a question. There was almost a glint of amusement flashing up before he exchanged it for another murderous frown and she gasped for air like a fish out of water. She stopped herself from the immediate denial she wanted to throw at him. The smugness complimented his anger. In a way it made sense. There was an opportunity somehow.

 

“You are trying to fuck the Winter Soldier.” He still sounded angry but his voice lost a little of its bite. “Can't you pick someone else for your unspeakable urges?”

 

She scowled back.

 

“So what if did, Tony? The crotch wants what it wants.”

 

“You are impossible.” He spat but it sounded weak and it took every last bit of self-preservation not to grin at him.

 

“Coming from you that's almost flattering.”

 

His eyes darkened and he straightened up, the desk underneath his hands heavily shaking.

 

“Lewis, I swear to you, you are going to..”

 

“Shut up, the both of you!” As aloof as she had been just a moment ago Jane's determination shone bright and devastating. From on second to next she had crossed the room unperceived and planted herself in front of Tony. Not for the first time Darcy wondered if there were any special abilities Jane had never bothered to tell her about.

Her face screamed 'murder' and her tiny build suddenly towered over the both of them.

 

“It's none of your damn business who Darcy's sleeping with so stop yelling at my assistant or get the hell out of my lab!” His mouth fell shut and he watched her in wonder. Darcy almost laughed but then Jane turned to her and her blood ran cold.

 

“And you stop provoking him. He's an insensitive jerk but you know it's cause he cares, so don't be a brat and do your damn job. I'm not paying you to fight with the landlord.”

 

There was the half-hearted mash-up of Tony's _“I don't care!”_ and her _“You're not paying me!”_ but Jane silenced them with a dirty look that she was 80% certain could probably kill lesser men.

 

Tony huffed in annoyance and crossed his arms.

 

“You're grounded.” He said, turned around without granting her the chance to reply and stalked out of the lab, clearly ignoring the very reasonable “You're not my dad!” she yelled after him.

 

Darcy was not satisfied.

 

Jane's eyes burnt through her skin.

 

She was not ready for that conversation.

 

“So is that what it is? You're trying to pick up a traumatized super-soldier?” With Tony gone she didn't sound ready for slaughter but that didn't mean she seemed happy. It scared her so much more than Tony ever could. “I've noticed that you're.. distracted lately.. but I thought it was just because Steve's finally back and.. since Thor's return I was so busy and didn't really ask how you felt about it..”

 

There was too much emotion that just didn't belong. Like she should be mad at herself for being negligent instead of Darcy's silence.

 

“I'm not trying to _pick up_ anyone.” She took a lot longer to lift up her book than was strictly necessary. “I was just trying to get Tony off my back.”

 

“So what is it about?”

 

She settled back into her chair and tried to seem as calm as possible. With everything she had she hoped Jane wasn't able to see right through it.

 

“We're friends. I'm trying to tutor him in all things 21st century. The guy hasn't seen Lord of the Rings, Jane, he needs me. Tony's paranoid and thinks that's a suicide mission.”

 

She was searching for something in her eyes but kept quiet. Long enough for Darcy to feel exposed under her scrutiny. She pretended to rearrange the files on her desk and tried not think of any possible conclusion Jane might come to.

 

“So that's all there is?”

 

Of course she didn't believe her. Jane was better than that.

 

“It's all there is.”

 

She couldn't look at her now.

 

“Please be careful.” Jane said, the notes in her hands for once not the objective of attention and it felt too surreal for her to handle. “Tony's kind of a maniac but he's got a point. Barnes' the freaking Winter Soldier.” Her tone was daunted and low and Darcy didn't want to listen.

 

“So what if he is? He can't be my friend, too?”

 

The pause that followed was too long not to pull on her insides. There was a cough and a sigh and she wanted to scream at her to keep her mouth shut about anything that might follow.

 

“He's been brainwashed for years, Darcy. He might have been a good guy once but he's not stable. I could never trust him with your safety.”

 

She wanted to yell and cry for her to take it back.

 

“Steve's there, too.” She said instead and it felt like betrayal. “I'm safe with him, I swear.”

 

Jane chewed on her bottom-lip. Uncertainty etched into her features and it made her look old and kind of funny. Darcy didn't feel like laughing. Jane's words came from a place of love, she knew that.

 

It just made it hurt so much more.

 

“Don't get too close. At least promise that.”

 

For the first time she didn't want to give Jane what she asked for. She tried not to hate herself for it.

 

“I have it all under control.” She answered.

 

She didn't even believe it herself.

 

 

*

 

 

She had lied to Jane. Stretching the truth was something she had become almost comfortable with – mostly because she had to – but outright lying to her best friend's face tasted foul and bitter. It might be the reason she left the lab only two hours later. She might have called it a 'headache' to Jane's face, but that wasn't too much of a stretch.

Now, alone in the corridor on her way to her apartment it was a different kind of pain. She was an idiot and a liar. And rectification couldn't solve anything.

 

Jane's words still too clear in her head she only wondered for a moment about her unlocked door. Her position had been distinct. The alternative only worse. _The truth_ would have been worse.

 

She slipped out of her boots and didn't spare a single glance to her living-room. The fridge was loudly calling her name.

 

She would find a way to explain it to her somehow. Someday. Once she had made peace with it herself.

 

Her hands hovered over the bottle of beer right in front of her before she reached for the water instead. Before it became something else to be concerned about. Before she turned into Tony Stark himself.

 

Someone else who only looked at her with disappointment.

 

She was mid-gulp when she entered the living-room.

 

“HOLY FUCK!”

 

The bottle dropped from her hands, water sputtering out of her mouth, all over her shirt and a ridiculous part of her brain was sort of proud she didn't choke on it.

Bucky's face was kind of smug when he caught it before it reached the floor.

 

“You really don't pay much attention, do you?” He was crouched at her feet, close enough for her to reach out and pat his head and for a second it preoccupied her more than his unannounced presence. He was here and warm and looked at her directly. There hadn't been so little distance since the day in the gym. If she spread out her fingers she could..

 

“You scared the shit out of me! What the hell?” Rational thought came back with a vengeance.

 

He slowly rose to his full height and put the bottle back into her shaking hands, the tip of his fingers brushing over her skin and she would never admit how it was enough to forgive him for the almost-heart-attack he had put her through. Rational thought had no chance against any of that.

 

“I'm sorry to startle you,” He begun and his smirk didn't look the part in the slightest. The proximity did things to her stomach her head wasn't quite ready to comprehend. “But you should really be more aware of your surroundings.”

 

She pushed at his chest just to prove herself she could. Maybe her palms lingered longer than they should.

 

“Ex-cuse me, Sergeant Super-spy, some people trust in the security of their home!”

 

She put as much outrage into her voice as she could and his smirk waned and he looked almost reproachful.

 

“We probably should work on that..”

 

She passed him, not without prodding his shoulder hard and took a seat on her coach. The way he followed her movement was a lot less distracting than his smell from up close. It was a thought for another time.

 

“So are you here to criticise my clearly insufficient super-hero capabilities? Or do you plan to train me? Like in the movies?” The notion was exciting enough to ground her a little and if his smile was anything to go by it was glaringly obvious. He took a step closer and slumped into the armchair across from her.

 

“Actually neither, but I guess that's something we should tackle sometime soon. If I was anyone else you could have ended up with a bullet between your eyes. It's a freaking joke how easy it was to get in here.”

 

“Once you're _in here_ , maybe. But man, this is the Avengers Tower, J doesn't let just anyone into the living quarters.”

 

He scanned the room as if there was a weak spot in every corner and she didn't find it endearing. At all. Never in a hundred years. Not even a little.

 

“You keep staring at me while you should be figuring out how I got here in the first place.”

 

She took another sip and ignored how the wet fabric of her shirt clung to her chest. Bucky very clearly ignored it too. Or didn't care. It was probably the latter.

 

“I'm trying to figure out why you're here. You're a little early for our movie night and I'm kinda confused about the lack in parental supervision.”

 

“Am I not welcome, best friend Darcy Lewis?” The teasing shouldn't be sexy. It shouldn't be what she concentrated on either.

 

“You absolutely know that's not what I mean. Did you tie up Steve and lock him in his closet? Maybe with Sam? 'Cause I totally get the vibes if you know what I mean..”

 

“Riveting visual but sadly no. Barton's informed. I didn't really feel like having Stevie here for this kind of conversation..”

 

And just like that the airy atmosphere evaporated and a foreboding sense of dread settled in.

 

“Oh no..”

 

“Huh?” The confused look on his face was kind of adorable and that was not the kind of word she should ever connect him to out loud. Or at all.

 

“Nothing good ever starts with anyone calling anything 'this kind of conversation'..” She mumbled and there was the shadow of a smirk on his lips but it lacked any real humour.

 

“I don't think it's that bad..” He said, lost in thought for only a second. Then he lifted his head and _fucking_ winked at her. “or maybe it's worse.”

 

_Maybe_ she threw her fucking bottle at him. Again. He caught it mid-air.

 

“In respect towards our budding friendship I will not tell you how much of a shit person you are, but be aware that it is heavily implied.”

 

His grin was wolfish and it took too much strength to keep a straight face. Somehow she managed.

 

“It's a little embarrassing.. and weird.. and uncomfortable.” He said after a while and stole a sip of her water.

 

“Descriptive. You should write for a living.”

 

He rolled his eyes and threw the bottle cap at her shoulder. It stung a little more than he probably intended.

 

“I... gathered some information about you.” He begun carefully, sight trained on her expression as if he waited for the tiniest sign of discomfort to stop. “It wasn't exactly planned..”

 

“You.. stalked me on accident?”

 

He made a face. Then he shrugged his shoulders and nodded.

 

“I wasn't actually looking for you. I wasn't trying to gain information you weren't willing to give to me.” His fingers tapped against his thigh in a somewhat nervous gesture. “Although you do have an advantage in that regard... Stevie told me you read about us in High School?”

 

14-year-old Darcy cried out in embarrassment and she kept her mouth firmly shut. He seemed to be amused by the thought.

 

“Anyway... I was actually looking for someone with certain expertise and Natalia said you could help me.”

 

Now she was intrigued. And all fear was gone.

 

“Whatever you need.” She answered before she even knew what she was agreeing to. Maybe in reflex. Maybe because it was him. The smile on his lips was worth it. And a little sad.

 

“It's.. I'm not a man of this time and I'm.. adapting but.. to gather the information I need I would have to leave the tower.. which I'm not cleared for and I'm not completely helpless with technology but nowhere near versed enough to manage what I need on my own...”

 

“Nat told you I'm a hacker?”

 

“Precisely.”

 

Again he looked painfully tense.

 

“Wait...”

 

The rhythm on his thigh stopped in an instant.

 

“Natalia? Not only could Nat probably help you better than I could... which.. pains me to admit.. but.. Why _Natalia_?”

 

He frowned a little in concentration and resumed the beat of his fingertips.

 

“'Tis only fitting. I should have expected her to meddle.” He shook his head as if answering to himself. “It is her name. Or it used to be.”

 

A weird suspicion build in the pit of her stomach.

 

“You know Nat? From.. before?”

 

“From before I shot her. There's a history.”

 

Suspicion turned to insecurity and pictures she would have welcomed in any other constellation before filled her head and she felt heat rise to her cheeks and his confusion lasted all but a moment.

 

She didn't think ' _I could never compare to that_ '.

Maybe for a second.

At least she didn't say it out loud.

 

Apparently it was written all over her face.

 

“Oh doll, not like that!” His smile was fond and amused and was gone as fast as it appeared.

 

“I trained Natalia when she was a child.. the memory is.. still a little blurry but I pieced it together.” He said as if it was to be expected and it couldn't be farther from the truth. As if Natasha as a little girl was anything she could ever comprehend.

 

The things she didn't know about the people she cared about could fill libraries. It stung every time. She made a mental note to ask her about it later.

 

“Did you tell her about me?”

 

For a moment he just stared at her.

 

“She has a way of knowing things she shouldn't. But no. We agreed on that.” The tempo of his fingertips was rising and for now she preferred the sight to his tense expression.

 

“But she has her suspicions.. in the same way your precious Stark does.”

 

At that another kind of dread made its way back to the surface.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

She wasn't sure if she really wanted him to answer.

 

He shifted in his seat and didn't meet her eyes.

 

“I was trying to talk to you about this earlier.. I went to the labs a few hours ago.. but you were busy.”

 

“Oh no..”

 

He nodded and still didn't look at her.

 

“Your... passionate dispute was.. clearly audible from outside the room. Thought it's best to fade. I decided to wait for you here.”

 

“You heard me fighting with Tony...”

 

“Every word until Foster kicked him out.”

 

_Well, shit._

 

“It was...”

 

“No need to explain.”

 

“So you'd rather we'll keep this awkward tension forever?”

 

If she didn't hide behind her hands it was mostly because she'd temporarily forgotten how to move.

 

“No.. I mean, I understand. It's smart. It jives.”

 

_Oh._

 

“Thing is.. If there is an association it's best if people like your Stark believe it's like this. Base, with no deeper connection, only a phase anyway.. Safer.. I guess.”

 

Her room seemed much more interesting than she was. It was getting a little ridiculous. She somehow didn't feel it would be wise to remain on the subject.

 

Bucky and her and sex was not exactly anywhere near appropriate conversation topic. Yet. Or maybe ever. It was clearly nothing to concern herself with now. Not when she still felt like a useless child in all of this.

 

He wasn't blushing but evidently uncomfortable. She didn't fare much better.

 

“People like _my_ Stark?” She asked instead and his shoulders loosened a little.

 

“You don't like Tony very much, do you?”

 

He cleared his throat and threw her a brief glance.

 

“That's not it, doll. Reminds me too much of his father, it's distracting.”

 

It seemed offhanded, as if he wanted to be done with the matter just as much as with the one before. Another answer she hadn't expected.

 

“You knew his father?”

And it tasted almost too invasive but his expression stayed the same.

 

“Howard was my friend.” He began. His tone careful and low as if he wanted to give her time to stop him.

Darcy swallowed the urge to reach for his hand.

 

There was no clear emotion in his voice when he continued talking. Somehow that's what made it hurt.

 

“Killed him in 1991. Bashed his head right in and choked his dame to death. Didn't think twice about it in 20 years.”

 

There was a moment of silence and he didn't look at her. As if he was too afraid of what he might see in her eyes. As if this was the revelation that would make her get up and run.

 

“But you think about it now.” She said and there was no question in it. His gaze flickered to her face and there was a resignation in his features that dried out her throat. Her muscles ached under the strain she forced upon herself not to pull him close and for a second she thought how much good it would do if she just cried for the both of them.

 

“Every goddamn time I see his face.”

 

Part of her should be scared now. It just ached instead.

 

For Howard and Maria and Tony. For the Bucky before the war. For the man in front of her now.

 

“It wasn't in the file they gave me.” She said and he pressed his lips into a thin line.

 

“Most things I did aren't. That was the point of me.”

 

His calm demeanour should be terrifying. Just like her own it somehow wasn't.

 

“It wasn't you. They used you as their weapon.”

 

It sounded so trite out loud. She didn't know if she should be talking about this in the first place. He was too far away to touch and she had no clue if he would have wanted her to. She remained motionless and held his sight.

 

“It was still my hand that took their lives.” He answered and her chest became too heavy to form words. “And this is why Stark hates me and will continue to do so for as long as I still breathe... and if that's all he does.. he's a kinder man than I deserve.”

 

And it no longer mattered if they were close enough or not, if it was appropriate or fitting or whatever boundary she was rushing past because his expression pained her too much to keep still; If it maybe was only for her own sake. Every part of her kept screaming to reach out and if she surprised him, risked her own life in the process, he didn't show.

She left the couch behind and his hands weren't welcoming but didn't push her away either. Only her knees straddled his hips, ridiculously, as if not to crush him with her weight or to leave a last remain of distance in her action. His arms rested at her side, as if he wasn't sure what reaction was considered acceptable as her own slung around his waist, face buried against his neck and she didn't just imagine how his heartbeat quickened as if to match her own.

 

She settled properly into his lap. He was warm and solid underneath her touch. Made from muscles and metal and it felt like her body moulded against his form in a supplementing contrast.

 

For a moment he seemed to be frozen in indecision. Darcy felt unsure if she had gone too far.

 

Then his arms slowly lowered around her shoulders, his right hand rested against the back of her head, feather-light as if he had to make sure she could still move away the second she changed her mind. A silence stretched around them that for once wasn't uncomfortable.

She breathed him in and it was right and familiar. Felt the movement of his throat against her cheek as he swallowed. Heard him sigh next to her ear.

 

She didn't kiss his neck but her lips where pressed against it and with another deep exhale his arms tightened around her back, held her so impossibly closer and she didn't dare to imagine how little more she would need to just sink right into him. How strictly necessary it would truly be to ever remove herself from him again.

 

His own cheek nestled against the crown of her head and she closed her eyes for just a second. Didn't allow herself to think about how easy it would be to just fall asleep.

 

“You're a victim, too.” She whispered against his skin and he snorted without humour.

 

“That's what my therapist keeps on telling me.” He answered, so softly she wasn't sure she would have made it out if she wasn't so close.

 

“They sound smart.”

 

She felt him smile and his arms tightened once again.

 

“We'll see about that I suppose.”

 

He held still. His own face pressed against her hair for a moment before his grip loosened and the pressure turned into a soothing tickle against the back of her head.

 

She purred in response and there was a low chuckle.

 

“You know.. as much as I enjoy a pretty kitten in my lap, cuddling is not what I came here for.”

 

She didn't blush. With her cheeks still buried in the curve of his neck no one could prove otherwise.

 

“I don't want Stevie to know as long as I don't have any more information and that google thing didn't really help. If I asked for his help he would either blame himself or tell me he didn't believe I was ready but I.. I need to know..”

 

She lifted her head to look him in the eye and it was a lot more intimate than she expected. Their noses almost brushed as he turned to her and she drew back a little, still in his lap, with his arms now loosely around her waist but with enough distance to not feel weird about it.

 

He seemed nervous and reluctant. She felt his hands fiddling with the hem of her shirt, ever so often grazing her skin and when she looked at him it was so much more intense than she had intended.

 

She cleared her throat and gestured for him to continue.

 

“I need you to find someone for me..” He begun and her determination was rising. “I need to know what happened..” She held his sight and when he explained, Darcy listened, with an eye that remained almost dry and a silent heartfelt promise and the squeeze of his forearm before he left.

 

She didn't know if any of her feelings made sense but for once she was useful. For once there was something she could actually do and she felt tired and sad and like she couldn't allow herself to cry about any of it for the fear that she wouldn't know if she could stop.

 

And when he returned hours later, following Steve into her living-room, he greeted her with a fleeting smile that told of nothing they had shared and took his place next to her. His lap full of sweets and 15 Inches in between. And she didn't tell and Steve didn't notice and her mission weighed heavy at her chest. Too relevant and heartbreaking to ignore for even a moment and she was almost sorry for the pinch of happiness she couldn't shake. How right it felt to be needed. How glad she had been he had turned to her this time.

 

Now he didn't. Again he had kept firmly at his place. Again he had been careful not to touch her; Not even in passing. And she didn't try to second-guess and just settled for the memory that was still too surreal to really wrap her head around it and kept promising him to do her best a thousand times in silence.

 

It wasn't the ghost of his embrace that kept her eyes open that night. With her doors locked and her phone turned off she kept staring at her computer screen. Sifting through databases and articles until the words blurred in front of her and she fell into an almost peaceful slumber. Only filled with warmth and recollections that weren't quite her own. A certain lack of ease and the relief at the sound of a voice that was familiar. A fluttering heart and the soft brush of lips against her throat. The scent of her shampoo.

 

It didn't scare her in the morning.

 

 

*

 

Natasha Romanoff had the uncanny ability to completely vanish whenever Darcy was looking for her. It'd been like that from day one. It had been particularly aggravating in the months of Steve's absence. She never even expected to find her whenever her questions kept her awake.

 

And then she'd usually emerge from the shadows – hours later. Sometimes days. And there would be a smug grin on her ridiculously beautiful mouth and as many answers as she was willing to give - Or had the necessary clearance for. Darcy never even had to ask out loud.

 

She was completely dumbfounded when Natasha opened her door after the first knock this time.

 

“You're late.” She said in a teasing voice and ushered Darcy inside before she could pick her jaw back up from the floor and when she sat down onto the leather coach, that looked brand new and untouched, it was too confusing and she just gaped at the woman for two minutes straight.

 

She wasn't sure if she had ever been to Natasha's apartment before. Or if anyone had for that matter. It looked completely immaculate. Nothing that indicated any sign of living besides the steaming cup of coffee on the probably deviantly expensive glass table in front of her.

 

Not a single finger print on the surface.

 

Natasha urged the cup a little closer towards her and sat down to her right.

 

She took a sip. It tasted just the way she liked it.

 

“I sometimes wonder if you've bugged my apartment.”

 

Natasha flashed her a grin and it was so pretty Darcy felt like she was staring at the sun.

 

“Stop distracting me with your beautiful face.”

 

She chuckled and brushed Darcy's cheek with her thumb. It made her feel like a little kid. Also kind of nervous.

 

“Just the tracker in your phone.” She answered and leaned back into the cushions. “And your laptop. And Jane's car.”

 

Darcy downed half of her coffee and felt only slightly annoyed. There was really no surprise in any of it.

 

“I'm not even gonna start arguing about that. You know that's not why I'm here.”

 

She nodded and eyed up her expression.

 

“You're here because I sent Barnes to you. You want to know why I didn't take care of it myself. Am I right?”

 

Darcy's hands felt clammy.

 

“Isn't 'I didn't feel like doing it' enough of an answer?”

 

She rolled her eyes and Natasha's smirk returned.

 

“I call bullshit.”

 

Another chuckle.

 

“You know, if you were anyone else I'd be annoyed you didn't connect the dots.”

 

Darcy wiped her face off all emotion.

 

“Thank you so much for accepting my lack of intelligence.” She deadpanned and Natasha waved her hand dismissively.

 

“Your insecurities too. I'm sympathetic like that.”

 

She felt a little like throwing something but Natasha wasn't Bucky. She couldn't completely cross-out retaliation. She didn't feel particularly inclined to risk her life today.

 

Natasha's posture was relaxed but her face turned a bit more serious. She took another sip of her drink and kept silent.

 

“I am aware that you would have told me everything, if you would have wanted me to know.” Natasha begun and Darcy stopped breathing for a moment. “The fact that you didn't doesn't mean I don't have my suspicions. And we don't need to talk about that. Not now. Maybe not at all. But I am here and I see some of it.”

 

She paused as if she needed to find the right words. Or change them.

 

“Barnes teased Steve about Wilson yesterday.” She kept staring at her face and Darcy didn't know what reaction she expected. “Just a quip and Cap was blushing and denied everything and Barnes was laughing like an asshole.”

 

She still waited for the point she was trying to make. Fighting the smile that wanted to spread across her face at the image. Natasha's expression turned a little stern.

 

“A mere week ago the man hasn't shown more than a flicker of muscle-movement in his face every other day. Almost _nothing_.”

 

So much emphasis. She swallowed and didn't dare to interrupt.

 

“And then.. suddenly, the two of you start to get in contact and whatever it is you are doing - a single week later the man laughs. He's _joking_ around. Coincidentally just a few days after the two of you begun to spend every evening together? Whatever the details – it is obvious there is a correlation. So it doesn't matter if I might be a bit more efficient concerning his search. I'm not gonna impose on the time he could spent getting better. He deserves getting better. _Steve_ deserves that.”

 

She reached out and squeezed Darcy's shoulder for a second.

 

“Whatever it is - I believe you're really good for him.”

 

And Darcy wanted to believe everything. She bit down hard on her bottom lip, just the smallest pressure away from drawing blood and couldn't hold Natasha's sight. There was a warm sensation behind her chest. She kept her eyes fixated on the table.

 

“Aren't you a link to his past, too?” She finally asked. “Don't you think being around you might at least help him remember?”

 

She didn't turn but felt Natasha's eyes at the side of her face.

 

“I believe that will happen in time and I don't think it's what really matters right now. To be honest I didn't think he would tell you about that.”

 

Her voice sounded so tired.

 

“It wasn't in the file you gave me.”

 

There was at least another minute of silence.

 

“Because I didn't know before they brought him in.” She said and there was something vulnerable in her tone that pulled on her insides.

 

Darcy didn't turn but reached for her hand. Because Natasha sounded like that might be what she needed. Because she knew with crystal clarity that she would never dare to reach out herself.

 

“I knew that the Winter Soldier was the one who shot me all these years ago. I had heard the rumours, I've seen the signs. It took looking him in the face to see that he was also the one who taught me how.”

 

Her grip was tight and damp against Darcy's skin. She returned it in equal measure.

 

“They never gave us a name. We've only knew him as солдат. The солдат I've known never seemed like a person. All those things back then only start to make sense now.”

 

_The image of a red haired girl covered in blood._

 

“You were only a child.”

 

_Trained under cold eyes that weren't Bucky's._

 

“They made him turn us into weapons.”

 

She wanted to wrap her into her arms and keep her there forever. She wanted to protect her from any possible harm she might still have to face. It was naïve and ridiculous. Useless. Out of the two of them she knew herself to be the one most likely to break.

Natasha's hand was small and soft and utterly deadly and she wanted to rip the burden of it out of her once and for all and she never would. She looked at her out of the corner of her eye and didn't try to smile. Didn't dare to raise her voice once again.

 

“They tried to recreate his serum.” Her chuckle was low, bitter and cut like a knife. She tightened her grip. “It didn't work out like they intended.”

Her sentences carried so much more than its language conveyed. She knew yet so little and kept on wondering how the women in front of her was still standing. She wanted to give her all the strength she still had to offer. Wanted to prove to her how much she cared.

 

The mere idea of verbal declarations of love somehow felt inept. She didn't know what to do besides keep holding on.

 

“I'm sure you know how it ended. I've seen you geek out over Battle Royale..”

 

Stupid. Speechless. And so _so_ ashamed.

 

“I..”

 

“No, no! Clint likes it too – it's fine.” Her expression softened a little. “The thing is.. not all of us made it that far. Not just because of the training. Because they tried to make us _like him_ and they never got it right.” She stared into the distance. “I was lucky.”

 

If Darcy hadn't been able to look her way just a moment ago, now she didn't know how to stop.

 

“You're a super-soldier, too?”

 

Natasha's answering smirk was only somewhat sad.

 

“Not exactly. Not anymore. If Barnes' serum is a modified version of the one Steve got, mine is a diluted copy of its concept. It slowed down my ageing for awhile, sharpened my instincts and reflexes, made me stronger and faster and increased my healing but.. not in the same way. These two barely scratch 30 physically – if you cut into Steve's cheek now, it'll be all healed up in a few hours, .. I have some perks left - but for the same result I would need to take the serum regularly. It didn't change us the same way it changed them.” Her expression was careful and calculating. With a last squeeze she let go of Darcy's hand. “It changed me enough to give Clint nightmares for a couple of years.”

 

Her stare wasn't as intense and heart-stopping as it felt for a second. She didn't mean to knock the breath right out of her. There was a slight edge to it – gone as fast as it appeared and Darcy tried to keep her face as neutral as she could.

 

It probably wasn't much of an achievement.

 

“What do you mean..?” She asked. _Innocently_. Because she didn't understand. For no other reason whatsoever.

 

She felt exposed and pathetic and her cheeks were burning. Natasha seemed completely calm.

 

“Apparently the serum not only strengthens your body – it strengthens your bond too. I tried to ignore my dreams back then. They were crazy enough to be just dreams. Flashes of circus shows and meadows, a family just between loving and tragic and all the fighting. His life was unusual enough to seem like a combination of everything I wanted and everything I've known. It wasn't as easy for him..”

 

There was a hint of regret in her smile.

 

“He told me growing up he only dreamed of pain. Of violence, murder, starvation. Pieces of everything they tried on us to make us their perfect little weapons. It changed when he got older. Dating back it correlates with the time-span they experimented on us with the serum. Nowadays it only happens in particularly stirring situations.. makes you a bit paranoid about nightmares.” She petted the back of her hand and flashed her a grin. “But I completely digress..”

 

She held her sight a hint longer than felt necessary.

 

Everything was falling into place.

 

Darcy shrugged, then nodded, then simply stared back.

 

“I want to know everything you're willing to tell me.”

 

Natasha's laugh was even more beautiful than her unfairly flawless face.

 

“Same here, лапочка, same here.”

 

 

*

 

It took until the first week of December to find what Bucky was looking for. She might have broken a law or two in the process but she wasn't quite worried. She was confident enough in her abilities to be at least half-way certain she had covered her tracks. She was completely sure Tony would still take care of it if she hadn't. Even if he mostly frowned at her these days. Pepper usually laughed at his antics. Jane was annoyed.

 

Not just because she decided to seek him out in her work hours. There was still too much they had yet to talk about, she still didn't feel ready to put into words. Jane had simply shaken her head when she told her what she had planned and ushered her out of the lab. She didn't know what to feel about that either.

 

But now she was here. Her feet so heavy she didn't know if she would be able to move forward and Tony's office door was closed and right in front of her and she wasn't sure if she went about this the wrong way around. At least her hands weren't shaking.

The hammering behind her chest was another matter altogether.

 

Coincidence took the choice out of her hands. Or maybe Jarvis.

 

Tony stared at her, his arm still outstretched in the process of leaving his office and his surprised expression turned into another frown the second her realized it was her.

 

“You're still alive.” He said but it lacked the usual bite she had become so accustomed to. This time she felt prepared enough. She swallowed the dry remark that burned her tongue and nodded into the direction of his office.

 

“Are you sober enough to talk for a moment?” _...Almost._

 

He contemplated her request for a few excruciating seconds. Then he turned around and marched right back to his desk. The disapproval in his glare almost tickled against her skin.

 

She swallowed the shame at that too. She closed the door behind her and didn't look him in the eye.

 

“You've been avoiding me.” He stated and there was no excuse good enough. Darcy simply nodded.

 

“So you've indulged sufficiently in your bad boy fantasies and are finally capable of rational thought again?”

 

She winced at that. Maybe she kind of deserved it.

 

“No, you fucking asshole.” She pressed out between clenched teeth. “I am here to apologize.. partially.”

 

“So tell me what parts you feel the most sorry about it, Shawty, I'm just overflowing with sympathy.”

 

She willed her hands to remain calm. Forced down the urge to fidget with the hem of her shirt. She couldn't show him uncertainty now.

 

“I understand your apprehension.” She said and willed herself to face him. “I understand why you hate him and there is nothing I can say to make it hurt any less, I know that. But I don't.”

 

He looked like he was seconds away from punching her in the face. It was the only thing that kept her from reaching out to him.

 

“I firmly believe that he is a victim in all of this.. and I believe part of you does too. Otherwise you wouldn't have done as much as you did. Steve told me how you tried to eradicate his programming. I know how many hours you spent in that damn lab to help him..”

He just glared at her. She didn't feel like backing down.

 

“I'm not trying to convince you to give him a chance – he told me what he did, Tony. I can't even imagine the strength it took to decide to let him stay here.. _to actively help him._ But that's not the person I spent my evenings with, Tony. The weapon that killed your parents isn't the man I'm trying to help. And I understand that we will never agree on this. That it would be too much to ask of you. But I care about him and I care about you and I am not willing to turn my back on either of you. And I'm sorry about that. You are my friend and part of me thinks I should be on your side in every situation.. especially if it's one that hurts you. But now he is my friend too.”

 

His arms were crossed against his chest and he wasn't really glaring at her any longer. His lips were pursed and his expression sour. But he didn't shake his head. He didn't yell at her.

 

For a minute the both of them kept quiet.

 

Then he turned around, pulled out a single glass from thin air and filled it with the bourbon he kept on his desk. He took a long gulp and the frown returned.

 

This time it looked a lot less angry.

 

“You make me sound like an angry child that isn't willing to share their toys.”

 

“You know me well enough to know that I would have specified that if it was what I meant.”

 

She thought about hugging him but the atmosphere still felt too tense to step closer.

 

“It is your right to hate him. I get that. But I'm allowed to feel whatever I feel too.”

 

He emptied his glass and stopped himself from nodding at her the last second. She pretended not to notice.

 

He refilled his drink and studied her face.

 

“So what is it you really want now, Shawty? Don't tell me this wasn't just the prelude to whatever you came here to ask for.”

 

It felt bad because it was the truth. Maybe it would have been worse if it wasn't. Darcy looked straight ahead, held his sight and didn't waver.

 

“Just because you make it sound like I am trying to manipulate you into something doesn't mean it wasn't genuine.”

 

He chuckled and sipped on his bourbon.

 

“You know, I actually believe that. I'm even kind of proud. You're like the daughter I never wanted.”

 

She smirked at that. Just for a moment. And reality kept up with her, reminding her that he wasn't wrong and this was the chance she had been waiting for.

 

Maybe it was naïve and in vain.

She wouldn't fail because of a lack of trying.

 

“You're also kinda right..”

 

“Of course I am.”

 

She swallowed dryly. Her hands balled into fists. She took one last breath and hoped with everything she had she could make him see.

 

“I need you to clear Bucky to leave the tower.”

 

He blinked once. Took a sip. Then blinked again.

 

“You're going to explain that from the very beginning.” Tony said but there was no venom in his voice. Just a careful scepticism, calculation and beneath it all curiosity. This was something she knew well enough, this was what she could work with.

 

She sat down and reached for the glass he offered. There was a half-truth – well prepared and it was important enough to use it.

 

She cleared her throat and began to talk.

 

She had a long night ahead of her.

 

 

 


End file.
